
Class . 

Book.- - 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



-OF- 



JOHN G. FEE, 



BEREA, KENTUCKY. 



.^^___ /7/iV-w' 



1-" 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

NATIONAL CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, 

CHICAGO, ILL.; 
1891. 



-fTx 



Entered according to act of Congress in the year i8qi, 

BY JOHN G. FEE, 

Tn the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C 



INTRODUCTION. 

In consenting to write an introduction to the Autobi- 
ography of one whom I have long known and honored, I 
desire to say that the nineteenth century has not been 
more remarkable for its discoveries in science, art, and all 
forms of material progress, than it has for the moral hero- 
ism of many men and women whose courage, faith, pa- 
tience and self-sacrifice have done so much to promote 
justice and humanity, and for the advancement of the 
Redeemer's kingdom. Among these Christian patriots 
there is one whose long life of consecration to the good of 
his fellow men ought to be not only an example but an 
inspiration to the youth of our land. John G. Fee, of 
Berea, Ky., was born and raised under the influences of 
slavery and was surrounded by those powerfully conserva- 
tive forces that held many good men to the defense of 
oppression. 

Perhaps no other institution ever did so much to pervert 
all sense of justice and to deaden all feelings of compassion 
as that which declares that under a republican government 
men might hold their unoffending fellow men in bondage. 

"Chain them, and task them, and exact their sweat, 
With stripes that Mercy with a bleeding heart 
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast." 

Nay, more, it held that this right of property in man 
carried with it the right to set at naught the family relation 
and doom men to the perpetual ignorance of God and his 
word. 

The youth of our land can have little conception of the 
absolute control that half a century ago the system of 
slavery had on the minds and consciences of the nation. 
Nothing but a sublime faith in God enabled the men and 
women of that day to cheerfully accept reproach, ostracism 
and ridicule as inevitable consequences of the defense of 
the poor and needy whose special claim was that they 

3 



4 INTRODUCTION. ■ 

were at once the feeblest and most despised of the children 
of men. Nor has this been the sole, possibly not the 
greatest, of the moral conflicts that have demanded and 
developed a true, moral heroism. The spirit of caste, the 
outgrowth of slavery, was and is not less exacting and 
iniquitous. To regard a fellow man simply in his relation 
to his Maker, and to accord to him just that appreciation 
that his intelligence and moral worthiness demand, to do 
this without regard to sect or color, is still held in large 
sections of our country to be a crime against society which 
will not be tolerated when there is power to suppress it. 
So, too, the moral protest against oathbound secret societies, 
— the uncompromising hostility to the liquor traffic and to 
any form of legislative approval of it, and above all, the 
opposition to divisions in the church of Christ as seen in 
the sects and denominations, demand a moral heroism 
which needs to be not less steadfast and self-sacrificing 
than that which wrested from slavery its scepter of power. 
Because Mr. Fee was in all these points most uncom- 
promising and true, and because of his indomitable 
perseverance amidst abounding obstacles, he has achieved 
a large measure of success, and won the appreciation of 
even his sometime enemies. But Bro. Fee is now advanced 
in life. His labor, though still efficient and valuable, 
cannot in the nature of things much longer continue. His 
reward is in his works that will follow him. In the 
language of the poet reformer, John G. Whittier, as applied 
to another, we may say, "Thanks for the good man's 
beautiful example." 

" His faith and works, like streams that intermingle, 
In the same channel ran; 

The crystal clearness of an eye kept single 
Shamed all the frauds of man. 

The very gentlest of all human natures 
He joined to courage strong, 

And love outstretching unto all (}od's creatures 
With sturdy hate of wrong." 

H. H. HiNMAN. 



PREFACE. 

Some six years since a friend requested that I prepare 
articles for the Berea Evangelist, on the topic, "Berea: its 
History and its Work." I did so. The articles appeared 
in the Berea Evangelist during the years 1885-6. Since 
that time friends have urged that I prepare a sketch of 
my leadings and labors up to my coming to Berea, and 
embody the whole in a volume. To do so will now be 
labor and care; yet in this way I may be able to do con- 
tinued good, — utter truth when my tongue shall be silent. 
I may be able in an emphatic way to say to the reader, 
Trnst God — trust him for success, for support, for life. If 
in this way you will trust God, he by his word, by his Spirit 
and by his providence, will lead you into the highest use- 
fulness of which, in your day and generation, you are 
capable. Often trials will come, friends fail, and the heavens 
above appear as brass and the earth beneath as iron, yet 
if you will holdonvi\\h Jacob, or stand still with Moses, 
you will see the face of God; the Red Sea of difficulties 
will open before you, and you will walk through dry shod. 
The future journey may indeed be a barren, stony wilder- 
ness, yet the manna will be fresh every morning and the 
shekinah of God will go before you and lead you across the 
Jordan, where you will eat the '-'new corn" in the land of 
promise. To this my own consciousness bears testimony; 
were I to say less I would not be faithful. 

John G. Fee. 

Berea, Ky., i8gi. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Parentage. — Conversion. — College Life. — At the 
Theological Seminary. — Deep Conviction and 
Consecration. — Field of Labor. — Burden of Spirit. 
-Sealing of the Holy Spirit. — Wife Chosen. — 
Betrothal. — Search for the Field of Labor. — 
Marriage. — Called to the Church in Lewis 
County. — Anti-Slavery Sermon. — Cast out of a 
Boarding-place 9-30 

CHAPTER n. 

A Home. — Resolutions of the Church. — Salary. — 
Meeting of Synod. — Resolutions. — My With- 
drawal. — Ecclesiastical Position. — Union on 
Christ. — Separation from A. M. Society. — An- 
ticipated Mob. — Prosecution of Hannahs. — in- 
vitation to C. M. Clay. — Expected Violence. — 
Anti-Slavery Manual. — Protest against Secret 
Orders 31-55 

CHAPTER HL 

Commission from the A. M. A.— Preaching and 
Church Building. — Redemption of a Slave 
Woman. — Her Effort to Free her Children. — 
Her Capture and Imprisonment 56-71 

CHAPTER IV. 

Imprisonment of a Colporter. — Assault on Myself. — 
House Burning. — Church House. — Baptism. — 
Consideration of the Subject. — Baptism of My- 
self and Wife. — Invitation to Madison County. — 
Organization of a Church. — Call to the Church. — 

Selection of a Place. — Name, Berea 72-93 

7 



CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER V. 

Removal to Madison County. — Projected College. — 
Its Foundation Principles. — Survey of Fields. — 
Mob at Dripping Springs. — Mob in Rockcastle 
County. — Fourth of July. — C. M. Clay and I 
differ. — Mob in Rockcastle County. — Mob in 
Madison County. — Dark Days at Berea. — En- 
treaty to Leave. — Decision to Hold On. — 
Trusts 94-124 

CHAPTER VI. 

Coming of J. A. R. Rogers. — Visit of C. M. Clay. — 
His Expediencies. — The first Commencement. — 
Adoption of a Constitution. — Caste. — Sectarian- 
ism. — Decision to Raise Funds. — Visit to the 
Imprisoned Mother. — Address in Plymouth 
Church. — Expulsion of Teachers and Friends at 
Berea. — Excitement in Bracken County. — Wife 
Returns to Berea. — Our Sojourn in Ohio. — 
Death and Burial of our Son Tappan. — Visit to 
Berea 125-160 

CHAPTER VII. 

Effort to Get Back.— Battle at Richmond, Ky.— 
Again Mobbed at Augusta, Ky. — Mobbed at 
Washington, Ky. — Return of my Wife to Berea. 
— Her Stay There. — Return to the Border. — Stay 
at Parker's Academy. — Return to Berea. — Re- 
sumption of the Work. — Moved to go to Camp 
Nelson. — My Work There 161-183 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Return to Berea. — Resumption of the Work. — The 
American Missionary Association. — W^ork 
Denominational — Divisive. — Association of Min- 
isters and Churches. — Kentucky Missionary As- 
sociation. — A Convention of Christians. — An 
Address, "Wherein We Differ from the Denom- 
inations." 184-212 



CHAPTER I. 

Parentage.— Conversion.— College Life.— At the Theolog- 
ical Seminary. — Deep Conviction and Consecration. 
—Field of Labor.— Burden of Spirit.— Sealing of the 
Holy Spirit. — Wife Chosen. — Betrothal. — Search for 
the Field of Labor. — Marriage. — Called to the Church 
in Lewis County. — Anti-Slavery Sermon. — Cast out 
of a Boarding-place. 

I WAS born in Bracken County, Kentucky, 
Sept. 9, 1816. 

My father, John Fee, was the son of John 
Fee, senior. He was of Scotch and EngHsh 
descent. His wife, formerly Elizabeth Brad- 
ford, was of Scotch-Irish descent. My 
father was an industrious, thrifty farmer. 
Unfortunately he inherited from his father's 
estate a bondman — a lad bound until he should 
be 25 years of age. 

My father came to the conclusion that if he 
would have sufficient and permanent labor he 
must have slave labor. He purchased and 
reared slaves until he was the owner of some 
thirteen. This was a great sin in him individ- 
ually, and to the family a detriment, as all 

moral wrongs are. 
9 



10 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

My father was observant, and by his read- 
ing kept himself famiHar with passing events. 
He saw that the effects of slavery were bad ; 
that it was a hindrance to social and national 
prosperity; and consequently invested his 
money in lands in free States and early deeded 
portions of these lands to each of his children. 
He did not see the end from the beginning, — 
what was to be the after-use of some of these 
lands. 

My mother was industrious and economical; 
a modest, tender-hearted woman, and a fond 
mother. I was her first born. She loved me 
very much, and I loved her in return. 

Her mother, Sarah Gregg, was a Quakeress 
from Pennsylvania. Her eldest son, Aaron 
Gregg, my wife's grandfather, was an indus- 
trious free laborer, an ardent lover of Hberty, 
and very out-spoken in his denunciations of 
slavery. This opposition to slavery and his 
love of liberty passed to his children and 
children's children, almost without exception. 

In my boyhood I thought nothing about the 
inherent sinfulness of slavery. I saw it as a 
prevalent institution in the family life of my 
relations on my father's side of the house. 
These were kind to me, and occupied what 



JOHN G. FEE, 11 

were considered good social positions. I was 
often scolded for being so much with the 
slaves, and threatened with punishment when 
I would intercede for them. Slavery, like 
every other evil institution, bore evil fruits, 
blunted the finest sensibilities and hardened 
the tenderest hearts. 

[By false teaching, unreflective youth can 
be led to look upon moral monstrosities as 
harmless; as even heaven-approved institu- 
tions. Vivid now is the impression made on 
my 3^outhful mind on seeing a Presbyterian 
preacher, who was a guest in my grandfather's 
house, rise before an immense audience and 
-select for his text, "Cursed be Canaan: a 
servant of servants shall he be unto his 
brethren." Of course the drift of the dis- 
course was after the plea of the slaveocracy— 
"God decreed that the children of Ham should 
be slaves to the children of Shem and Japheth; 
that Abraham held slaves, and Moses sanc- 
tioned such." 

All this was intensified by seeing a much- 
venerated neighbor, and slaveholder, who had 
represented the people in the State Legisla- 
ture, mount his horse, then uncovering his 
gray hairs, cry out in a loud voice, "The 



12 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

greatest sermon between heaven and earth." 
The providence and truth of God led me, in 
after years, to a very different conclusion. 

In the year 1830, when I was fourteen years 
old, Joseph Corlis, an earnest Christian man, 
took a subscription school near to my father's 
house, and insisted with great earnestness that 
he be allowed to board in my father's family. 
There was a providence in this. Under his 
prayers and faithful labors, I was deeply con- 
victed of sin and gave myself to God. My 
desire was to connect myself wath the M. E. 
church. My father opposed, saying I was 
too young. He was not himself a Christian. 
Some two years after this he was awakened, 
joined the Presbyterian church near to his 
home, and requested that I go with him. I 
desired a home with God's people, and gladly 
embraced the opportunity. After the lapse 
of some two years I was impressed that it 
was my duty to prepare for the Gospel 
ministry. I soon entered as a student in 
Augusta College, then located in Augusta, 
Bracken Co., Ky., my native county. I 
prosecuted my studies there for. about two 
and a-half years, then went to Miami Univer- 
sity, at Oxford, Ohio, and there finished my 



JOHN G. FEE, 13 

course of classical study save the* review of 
the last term of study; and finding I could do 
this at Augusta College, and enter Lane 
Theological Seminary at the beginning of the 
term of study there, I returned to Augusta 
College and took my diploma there. I 
entered Lane Seminary in the year 1842. 
Here I met in class one of my former class- 
mates, John Milton Campbell, a former 
student at Oxford, Ohio. He w^as a man of 
marked piety and great goodness of heart. 
Years previously he had consecrated himself 
to the w^ork of missions and chose West 
Africa as his field. Another member of the 
same class w^as James C. White, formerly of 
Boston, Massachusetts, late pastor of the 
Presbyterian church on Poplar St., Cincinnati. 
These brethren became deeply interested in 
me as a native of Kentucky and in view of 
my relation to the slave system, my father 
being a slaveholder. They pressed upon my 
conscience the text, "Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy 
neighbor as thy self," and as a practical mani- 
festation of this, "Do unto men as ye would 
they should do unto you." I saw that the 
duty enjoined was fundamental in the religion 



U AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

of Jesus Christ, and that unless I embraced 
the principle and lived it in honest practice, I 
would lose my soul. I saw also that as an 
honest man I ought to be willing to wear the 
name which would be a fair exponent of the 
principle I espoused. This was the name 
Abolitionist, odious then to the vast majority 
of people North, and especially South. For 
a time I struggled between odium on the one 
hand, and manifest duty on the other. I saw 
that to embrace the principle and wear the 
name was to cut myself off from relatives and 
former friends, and apparently from all pros- 
pects of usefulness in the world. I had in the 
grove near the seminary a place to which I 
went ever}^ day for prayer, between the hours 
of eleven and twelve. I saw that to have light 
and peace from God, I must make the conse- 
cration. I said, "Lord, if needs be, make me 
an Abolitionist." The surrender was com- 
plete. I arose from my knees with the con- 
sciousness that I had died to the world and 
accepted Christ in all the fullness of his char- 
acter as I then understood Him. Self must 
be surrendered. The test, the point of sur- 
render, may be one thing to one man, a differ- 
ent thing to another man; but it must be 
made,- — all given to Christ. 



JOHN G. FEE. 15 

In this consecration — this death to the 
world— I also made up my mind to accept all 
that should follow. Imperfect as has been 
my life, I do not remember that in all my 
after difficulties I had to consider anew the 
questions of sacrifice of propert}^, of comfort, 
of social position, of apparent failure, of per- 
sonal safety, or of giving up Hfe itself. The 
latter I regarded as even probable. This, 
with the rest, had been embodied in my 
former consecration. I felt that "my life was 
hid with Christ in God." 

Soon after the submission and consecration V 
referred to, the question arose. Where ought 
I to expend my future efforts, and manifest 
forth this love to God and man.? I had invi- 
tations to go with class-mates into the State 
of Indiana, into communities thrifty and pros- 
perous, with multipHed schools and growing 
churches. This was enticing to young aspir- 
ations, even to those who intended to do 
good. I was also considering seriously the 
duty of going with J. M. Campbell, my class- 
mate, to Western Africa; and was in "corres- 
pondence with the American Board of Com- 
missioners for Foreign Missions in reference 
to my going as a missionary abroad. 



16 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

Whilst these fields of labor were being 
considered, there came irresistibly the consid- 
eration of another field: that part of the home 
field which lay in the South, and especially in 
Kentuck}^, my native State. Then came be- 
fore me my relation to the slave. I had 
shared in the fruits of his unrequited toil; he 
was blind and dumb, and there was no one to 
plead for him. 

"Love thy neighbor as thyself" rang in my 
ears. 1 also considered the condition of the 
slave-owner. I knew he was willingly de- 
ceived by the false teachings of the popular 
ministry. I knew also that the great part of 
the non-slaveowners, who w^ere by their votes 
and action the actual slaveholders, did not see 
their crime; that they despised the slave be- 
cause of his condition, and that these non-slave- 
owners were violently opposed to any doctrine 
or practice that might treat the slave as a 
"neighbor," a brother, and make him equal 
before the law. I knew also that the great 
body of the people were practically without 
the fundamental principle of the Gospel, love 
to God and love to man; that, as in the days of 
Martin Luther, though the doctrine of justifi- 
cation by faith was plainly written in the Bible, 



JOHN G. FEE. 17 

yet the great body of people did not then see 
it; so now the great doctrine of loving God 
supremely and our neighbor as ourselves, "on 
which hang all the law and the prophets," 
though clearly written in the Bible, was not 
seen in its practical application by the great 
mass of the people. Such was my relation to 
this people, and theirs to God and the world, 
that I felt I i/nis^ return and preach to them 
the gospel of impartial love. 

In my bedroom on bended knee, and look- 
ing through my window across the Ohio river, 
over into my native State, I entered into a sol- 
emn covenant w^ith God to return and there 
preach this gospel of love without which all 
else was "as sounding brass or a tinkling cym- 
bal." 

I had kept up correspondence with my 
father, and told him my convictions and 
purposes. He was greatly incensed, and 
wrote, saying, "Bundle up your books and 
come home ; 1 have spent the last dollar I mean 
to spend on you in a free State." 

At the end of my second 3^ear of theological 
study I returned to my home, intending to do 
what I could for my father's conversion and 
that of the family. I spent ten months with 
my father and the community around. I felt 



18 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

during this time a great burden of spirit in view 
of the condition of society and the work which 
lay before me. I spent at one time, alone, in 
an open field on my father's farm, a whole 
night in prayer. On two other occasions, 
in prayer, alone, in a distant part of the 
farm, I had to m3^soul two of the fullest revela- 
ations of the glory of God in my life's history. 
These were not my first conversion, nor 
second conversion, nor sanctification. Con- 
version is committal to Christ, soul, body, and 
spirit. Of this I had been conscious previous 
to these after sealings of the Spirit. 

Sanctification is none the less by faith than 
justification, but it is continuous. There may 
arise to-day a new duty, a new apprehension 
of a habit un-Christ like, but not seen before. 
With this new apprehension comes the neces- 
sity of a new committal to Christ, with full as- 
surance of sustaining grace. 

There was another incident, a providence 
of good to me in these months of stay and 
labor. During a series of religious meetings 
held in the church house where I had previous- 
ly made my own public profession of Christ, 
I saw the conversion of the one to whom I 
gave my best affections, and the one I then 



JOHN G. FEE. 19 

decided to make, if possible, the sharer of my 
future joys and sorrows. I had known her 
from her childhood, and her mother before her; 
yet with all her attractions and merits in my 
eyes, I had no thought of choosing her previ- 
ous to her conversion, as the partner of my 
life. I knew no one could be happy with me, 
nor a help-mate in the Hfe I had resolved to 
hve, unless she was converted, and thus one 
in spirit and purpose with myself. 

On that day of her conversion and espousal 
to Christ (for I heard her experience and con- 
secration) I decided to seek with her future 
oneness. I had before me a governing 
purpose, and to this all my plans conformed. 
Marriage to me was not a mere impulse nor a 
mere business transaction. I believed then, as 
now, that in order to true and wise marriao-e 
there is some one in the world in whom there 
is, first, that pecuhar combination of qualities 
which form the basis of peculiar and exclusive 
affection; and then there must be that purpose 
of soul and habit of Hfe that fit for future har- 
mony and usefulness. This I found in her: 
that affection, sympathy, courage, cheer, 
activity, frugality and endurance, which few 
could have combined, and which greatly sus- 



20 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

tained me ia the dark and trying hours that 
attended most of our pathway. This much is 
due to truth and may be suggestive to others. 

By this time it became apparent that my 
work in trying to convert my father to senti- 
ments of justice and liberty was ended. He 
,had suppHed himself, from every possible 
source, with pro-slavery books and pamphlets, 
and became violent in his opposition to all efforts 
for the freedom of the slave. He still hoped 
to efface my convictions and lure me from my 
purpose. He offered to pay all bills if I 
would go to Princeton, New Jersey, and spend 
a year in the Theological Seminary in that 
place. This offer I declined. I said, I will not 
by any act of mine bid God-speed to an institu- 
tion in which the teaching and practice is 
subversive of the fundamental principles of the 
Gospel, — love to God supreme, and to our 
neighbors as ourselves. 

I was offered the pastorate of two churches 
in the county (Bracken), with abundant 
support, but on the condition that I would "go 
along and preach the Gospel and let the subject 
of slavery alone." I replied, "The Gospel is 
the good news of salvation from sin, all sin, 
the sin of slave-holding as well as all other sins; 



JOHh' G. FEE. 21 

and I will not sell my convictions in reference 
to that which I regard as an iniquity, nor my 
liberty to utter these convictions for a mess of 
pottage." 

I saw that my work in that region was 
ended. But my covenant was upon me to 
preach the gospel of love in Kentucky. I 
needed therefore to look for another field. 

Ecclesiastically I was connected with the 
New School Presbyterian "church" or sect. 
The ministerial brethren of that body at that 
time, in Kentucky, were relatively few. 
Several of these brethren earnestly solicited 
my co-operation. I told them my convictions 
in reference to the sinfulness of human slavery; 
of its utter subversion of the great fundamental 
principles of the Gospel. Some replied, "Yes, 
slavery is a bad thing; so was polygamy; but 
God tolerated it, and sent his prophets to 
preach principles that ultimate^ supplanted 
it. So," they said, "we must deal with 
slavery." I replied, Principles can be effective 
only as they are seen and applied. 

I was fettered with the notion that if I 
would purify the church, or sect, I must 
stay in it and there apply the principles, hold 
up the truth. Soon, however, an "eye-opener" 



22 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

came. I was invited to attend a meeting of 
the presbytery within the bounds of which I 
was then living. This was near to Cynthiana, 
Harrison Co., Ky. I went. I saw there, as 
elsewhere, the blight of slavery on every thing 
around me; the degradation of the slave, the 
idleness of the youth, the pride of the people, 
the spirit and manner of the ministers them- 
selves. Sabbath came; and the hour to com- 
mune, to eat at the Lord's table, came. With 
this came to my mind the text, "If any man 
that is called a brother be a fornicator, or 
covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a 
drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one 
not to eat." I said. If the slaveholder be not 
an extortioner, then no man under heaven is. 
I left the church house, and went out into an 
adjoining woodland and sat down on a log and 
wept as I thought of my condition, — that of 
holding ecclesiastical connection with men 
with whom I could not eat at the Lord's table. 
The pastorate of that church was offered to 
me. I saw in the eldership and leading mem 
bers determined opposition to the freedom of 
the slave. I saw there was not to me, in that 
place, an open door, and returned to my 
home. 



JOHN G. FEE. 23 

After a few days I took m}^ horse and 
started on an exploring tour through the inte- 
rior of the State. Then, hke most other min- 
isters, I was w^orking in the narrow groove of 
sect, and that a small one in Kentucky. Go- 
ing from place to place, I traveled on horse- 
back between three and four hundred miles. 
I heard, in my journeying, of a small church 
in the city of Louisville, Kentucky, then with- 
out a pastor. I visited the church and found 
the membership small — twenty-one in number. 
In this church there was to me one hopeful 
feature, and that was that there was but one 
slave-owner in the membership, and she the 
widow of a former preacher, who was repre- 
sented as having been an anti-slavery man. 
I said, This people will probably hear the 
truth spoken in love. I agreed to come and 
labor with them for a season, I then re- 
turned to my home in Bracken County. 

Soon a letter from the church followed me, 
saying, "If you will be useful among us, you 
must separate yourself from that abolition 
presbytery at Cincinnati." By that presby- 
tery I had been hcensed to preach the Gospel, 
and my connection, ecclesiastically, was yet 
with that body. I repHed, If my usefulness 



/ 



24 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

with you depends upon my separating from 
godly men, then with you I cannot be useful. 

Again I w^as apparently without a field of 
labor; but my purpose was unchanged, and 
my wilUng covenant to preach the gospel of 
love in my native State w^as yet upon me, but 
in what place to preach I knew not. With 
me it was then true that I must go forward, 
♦'not knowing w^hither I went." 

As previously suggested, my life's future 
was merged with that of another, and hers 
with mine. She had decided to go where I 
should go, and if I roamed in keeping my 
covenant, I should not roam alone. Accord- 
ingly with her consent, Matilda Hamilton and 
I were married September 26, 1844. 

Soon after this, two brethren, S. Y. Garri- 
son and E. P. Pratt, extended to me an invi- 
tation to assist in a meeting to be held in 
Lewis County, Kentucky. I accepted the 
invitation and went at the time appointed. I 
found a new church house just completed, 
and a large concourse of people. As I was 
informed, most of the people were descend- 
ants of Pennsylvanians, and but few slave- 
holders were in the community. The mem- 
bership of the church was small, but to me 



JOHN G. FEE. 25 

hopeful. There were at the beginning of the 
meeting only three members. These were 
women, wives of men who were not slave- 
holders. During the meeting two persons, 
on the profession of their faith, were added to 
the church. These were not slaveholders. 
I preached to the people, found attentive ears, 
and immediately an urgent solicitation to labor 
with them. 

In that community there was but one other 
church, a small band of Old School Presby- 
terians, The man who preached to them, 
once in each month, lived many miles distant, 
and was pro-slavery in his teachings. I said, 
These people are practically w^ithout the Gos- 
pel; this is missionary ground; there is an 
open door and I will come. Efforts were 
made to secure for me a partial support. 
Nearly one hundred dollars were pledged by 
the people; application was made to the 
Amt^rican Home Missionary Society for addi- 
tional aid; and, as I n:>w recollect, the sum 
was two hundred dollars. I returned to 
Bracken County, where I had previously left 
an appointment to deliver a lecture on the 
subject of slavery, in the court house in 
Brooksville, the county seat. This appoint- 



26 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

ment produced great commotion. Threats of 
violence were made, and with these came 
entreaties from relatives and friends to with- 
draw the appointment. During hfe, in all 
new or responsible engagements, I have been 
slow and careful in making them; but once 
made, as far as I can now remember, I have 
met my appointments, or made a vigorous 
effort in trying to do so. 

I went to the appointment, — my wife with 
me. James Hawkins, then the nominal slave 
of my father-in-law, went also, but "followed 
afar off." He went not to be seen as a hearer, 
but to guard the horses and saddles of myself 
and wife, and this of his ovv^n devising; — not 
known to us. We found in the court house a 
small audience of men. I delivered my lec- 
ture and we came quietly home. 

My father was so incensed that he said, 
"Enter not my door again." After some two 
weeks I preached a sermon in Sharon church 
house. My father was present. After ser- 
mon he invited me and Matilda, my wife, to 
go home with him. Though he opened, for 
a time, the door of his house, he never opened 
the door of his heart to the sentiments of free- 
dom to the slave, or to the doctrine of doing 



JOHN G. FEE. 27 

unto men as he would the}' should do unto 
him. 

The prospects of the newly-begun life, to 
my wife, were not flattering, and all I could 
then do was to walk by faith and not by sight. 
x\fter the lapse of a few more weeks we went 
to Lewis County, to enter upon the work as 
previously arranged. We took board in the 
house of Benjamin Given. He was a mem- 
ber of the M. E. Church. 

Soon after entering upon my work in Lewis 
County, John D. Tully, then husband to Ruth 
Tully, who was a member of the little church, 
requested that I would preach a sermon on 
the subject of slaver3\ I at once consented, 
and announced my purpose to do so at Union 
church house, four weeks from that time. I 
had then an engagement to attend in the 
meantime, the then-called "Southwestern 
Anti-slavery Convention," to be held in the 
city of Cincinnati, Ohio, in the month of April, 
1845. At that convention I made my first 
acquaintance with Salmon P. Chase, and was 
with him on the committee of resolutions 
there discussed and adopted. There I heard 
George W. Clark sing in his inimitable man- 
ner, that soul-stirring song, "Be free! O man. 



28 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

be free!" There I heard read a letter of 
great eloquence and power from Elihu Bur- 
ritt, for whom I afterward named my first- 
born son, Bm-ritt. 

I returned to Lewis County, Kentucky, m}' 
then chosen field of labor. At the appointed 
time I went to the church house where I had 
engaged to preach a sermon on the subject of 
slavery. I found there more people than 
could be seated in the house. I selected the 
text, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with 
all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself." I 
showed that human slavery was plainly a vio- 
lation of this fundamental principle of the 
Christian religion. I then considered the 
various texts in the Old and New Testaments 
assumed as sanctions of slavery. I showed 
that such assumptions were wrong; that the 
precepts of Christianity must be construed in 
harmony with its fundamental principles, and 
that slavery was sinful as certainly as any- 
thing in human action could be sinful. I in- 
vited the congregation to come back the next 
Lord's day and we would then consider the 
various schemes for the removal of this evil; 
I then dismissed them. 



JOHN G. FEE, 29 

On the next Lord's day the congregation 
was not so large as on the previous occasion. 
I reminded my audience that we had shown 
on the previous occasion that human slavery 
was a violation of the law of love, and there- 
fore a sin; that this sin, like all other sins, 
needed to be repented of, and that immedi- 
ately; just as we should immediately repent 
of any other great sin. I then considered the 
plea for colonization. I showed that to ban- 
ish a man from the land of his birth, guilty of 
no crime, was gross injustice — only adding in- 
iquity to crime. I showed that to do right is 
always safe; and that emancipation in the 
West Indies was an acknowledged good to 
all; that the slaves in our country, as a gen- 
eral rule, were patient, long-suffering, recept- 
ive, trusting, and, withal, acclimated; and 
would be more quiet laborers than those we 
would import from abroad. The verdict was 
soon rendered: "He is an Abolitionist, in 
favor of *nigger' equality; his teaching is dan- 
gerous to our property, and will breed insur- 
rection and rebellion; he ought to be moved." 

That Sabbath afternoon was not a quiet one 
in that part of Lewis County where we then 
were. No violence as yet; only jeers and 

3 



30 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

taunts. My wife was as quiet as if all around 
her had been serene. The next morning our 
landlord informed me that his wife was un- 
willing to keep us any longer. We had not a 
home of our own. My covenant was still on 
me to spread the gospel of love, justice and 
mercy, in Kentucky, my native State; where, 
I knew not. My purpose was unchanged. I 
could only stand still and see the salvation of 
God. It came. 



JOHN G. FEE. 31 



CHAPTER II. 

A Home. — Resolutions of the Church. — Salary. — Meeting 
of Synod. — Resolutions. — My Withdrawal. — Ecclesi- 
astical Position. — Union on Christ. — Separation from 
A. M. Society. — Anticipated Mob. — Prosecution of 
Hannahs. — Invitation to C. M. Clay. — Expected Vio- 
lence. — Anti-Slavery Manual, — Protest against Secret 
Orders. 

Monday morning found us absolutely with- 
out a home. My wife picked up her bonnet 
and went across the stream, Cabin Creek, to 
the house of "Uncle" Robert and "Aunt" 
Lydia Boyd. They were "Disciples" — disci- 
ples indeed. My wife said to Aunt Lydia, 
"We are without a home ; can we stop with 
you for a few weeks?" The reply was, 
"Certainly; come in." In a sense we were 
"strangers," and "they took us in." In less 
than two hours our little effects were removed 
and we were under another roof. 

I said to my wife, "My covenant is upon 
me to stay in Kentucky and preach this gospel 
of love. If I do so I must have a home of my 
own, a place where I shall be a fixture, a tax- 



32 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

payer; have a claim to citizenship and pro- 
tection." I had 409 acres of land in northern 
Indiana which I could then sell for six dollars 
per acre. I sold half of the tract and bought half 
of an acre of ground adjoining the lot of the 
friend with whom we were stopping. I found 
two men who said they would build for me a 
house if they had to "hold the sword in one 
hand and the trowel in the other; the pistol 
in one and the saw in the other." These 
were ungodly men — "the earth helped the 
woman." To secure material, even for a 
small house, was then, to me, a tedious business. 
Some of this lumber had to be hauled ten 
miles — not by railroad, or on turnpikes, but 
on jolt wagons and over mud roads. 

After some weeks my wife and I, "on 
horseback," went tv/enty-five miles to the 
house of her parents, where she tarried a few 
weeks, until our first child was born. 

I immediately returned to my field of labor, 
filHng appointments from Sabbath to Sabbath. 
My audiences were small, ranging from eight 
to twelve persons. Two persons who had 
united with the original three, went back as 
soon as persecutions arose. Two others, con- 
verted by the power of truth and Spirit of God, 



JOHN G. FEE. 33 

were added. These endured until death 
called them away. The church at a regular 
meeting resolved to treat slave-holding as they 
would any other practice plainly contrary to 
the Word of God, and refuse church fellow- 
ship to all persisting in the practice of slave- 
holding. I continued my appointments at 
Union Church house and at private houses 
where I could find an open door. The one 
hundred dollars, pledged toward my support, 
were ciphered down to twenty-five. One of 
the preachers, who knew my condition, and 
had known me for many years, had often been 
at my father's house. He had urged me to go 
to that field, and had pledged twenty-five dol- 
lars of the one hundred promised for my sup- 
port, but when he heard I had uttered my con- 
victions in sermons against human slavery, he 
declined to pay what he had pledged, saying 
*'he had intended to give to me a colt worth 
twenty-five dollars, but it had died"; "more- 
over, if I should find myself taken out some 
night, ridden on a rail and ducked in a pond, 
I would receive only what my folly deserved." 
This action of his need not now be surprising 
when we consider that this man had a rich 
farm, in an adjoining county, worked by 



34 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

slaves, and the women were driven to the 
hempfield whilst their babes lay crying on the 
kitchen floor. This I saw in passing. To 
some it will now seem horrid that 1 should 
have had any ecclesiastical association with 
such a man. I did not long retain such. 

In the month of October, 1845, I attended 
the annual meeting of the Synod of Kentucky, 
Presbyterian, New School, at Paris, Ky. The 
Synod in reviewing the records of Ebenezer 
Presbyter}^ considered the action of the church 
in Lewis Co., of which church I was then 
pastor. The church had by a unanimous vote 
declared that they would regard slave-holding 
as a sinful practice — a plain violation of the 
law of God, and refuse church fellowship to 
those persisting in the practice of slave-holding. 
This action was pronounced unwarranted and 
my part in it as reprehensible. 

A prominent member of the Synod and its 
Corresponding Secretary immediately entered 
upon a defense of slave-holding, and this in 
the light of Bible teaching, and with this a 
severe reflection upon me for teaching the 
opposite doctrine. In reply I gladly accepted 
the discussion of the subject of slavery, and 
that in the light of the Bible. After the 



JOHN G. FEE. 35 

second round the moderator decided we must 
not discuss the subject in the light of the 
Bible, but in the light of the constitution of 
the church, the "denomination to which we 
belonged." I replied, even in the light of 
this constitution slavery is wrong. This con- 
stitution declares an offense to be "any thing 
in the principle or practice of a church member 
which is contrary to the Word of God; or 
which, if it be not in its own nature sinful, may 
lead others to sin or mar their spiritual edifi- 
cation." I said, as we have shown, slave- 
holding is contrary to the Word of God, 
violates the law of love in taking away natural 
rights, and also tempts others to sin. The 
discussion was stopped by the moderator. A 
peroration was given by a venerable member, 

Dr. C , who said, "If the young man 

shall find himself some day taken out, ridden 
on a rail and ducked in a pond, he need not 
be surprised." 

The Synod then passed four resolutions. 

1. "That the action of the church in Lewis 
County, in declaring slave-holding as sinful, 
and refusing church fellowship to slavehold- 
ers, is unwarranted. 

2. The action of Bro. Fee in aidino- und 



36 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

encouraging such action is censurable in thus 
disturbing the peace of Zion, and in breaking 
his covenant vows to study the peace of Zion. 

3. That the A. M. Society be requested 
not to give aid to him as an evangeHst in our 
midst. 

4. That Ebenezer Presbytery be request- 
ed to appoint a committee to visit and labor 
with the church in Lewis County." The com- 
mittee came not. 

At the next meeting of the Synod, which 
meeting was held at Midway, Ky., my action 
in connection wdth the church in Lewis Co., 
Ky., was again taken up. I had said to the 
brethren of the Synod I had believed it to be 
my duty to stay with my brethren for a time 
and do what I could to induce them to cease 
from the practice or sanction of the sin of 
slave-holding. A prominent member replied: 
"A man may hold a black-eyed pea so near 
his eye that he will shut out of vision the 
whole world." Application was made. 

It was then said, "On our part there is no 
hope for repentance, and you have done all 3^ou 
can unless it be by withdrawing and consist- 
ently going where you belong." It was then 
added, "The constitution of the church," the 



JOHN G. FEE. 37 

denomination, *'to which you belong says 
nothing against slavery and it is 3^our duty to 
construe the constitution of the church as the 
body you belong to construes it." I repHed, 
"It is now manifest that my work with you is 
done. Also, the position you assume is prac- 
tical popery; you interpose between me and 
the Word of God a human creed and then 
demand that I construe that creed as the body 
to which I belong construes it. This takes 
away the right of private interpretation. This 
is the very essence of popery." I said, "Give 
to me a letter of dismission." This they did, 
as "in good and regular standing save agita- 
tion of the slavery question." With this sep- 
aration ended, on my part, all direct connec- 
tion with slave-holding bodies. 

As it now is, my work has been small, but 
had I consented to remain in the Synod of 
Kentucky, and to pursue the policy advised 
and adopted by the brethren in that Synod, 
my work would have been an utter failure. 
So far as I now know every church that con- 
sented to the conservative position, yea, pro- 
scriptive position of that Synod, has gone 
down. It either died for want of life or went 
over to the Old School body in its unqualified 



38 A UTOB TOGBAPHY OF 

fellowship of slaveholders . This failure was 
not to be attributed to want of ability in the 
ministry. Such men as Clelland, Gallaher 
Dickerson, Mills, Pratt and others were men 
of acknowledged ability. The majority of the 
ministers acknowledged the wrong of slavery 
in comparing it to concubinage, but said it 
was to be worn out by preaching principles. 
These brethren were negative, conservative. 
The slave power was positive, aggressive, and 
wore out these conservative ministers and 
their churches. When sins are gross and 
incorporated into the organic law of the land, 
nothing short of unqualified condemnation and 
refusal to support will be sufficient. Ministers 
must speak out as Nathan to David, "Thou 
art the man." "The blood of a murdered man 
lies at your door." "Put away the evil of your 
doings." Nothing short of such faithfulness 
will ever succeed. 

An important question was now before us 
as a church — what ecclesiastical position shall 
we assume? what shall we do for ecclesiastical 
co-operation? We had a lingering feeling, 
somewhat like that of the children of Israel in 
the days of Samuel, when they said: "We 
must be like the nations round about us." 
But God led and taught us otherwise. 



JOHN G. FEE. 39 

We saw that to succeed in Kentucky we 
must have the co-operation of all true Chris- 
tians, who trusted in Christ as their Savior 
from sin — all sin. Bro. G. came across the Ohio 
river and said, "Bro. Fee, we Free Presby- 
terians have so amended our Confession of 
Faith that we shut out all slaveholders; join 
with us." I said: "To do so would leave us 
but a little handful in Kentucky; also there are 
good brethren here who would not like your 
creed, in other respects; nor the name Presby- 
terian." 

Bro. W., a Wesleyan of good abiHty and of 
true piety, came. He said: "Bro. Fee, Wes- 
leyans have no connection with slave-holding 
and our creed is small; join with us." I said: 
"We are glad of your protest against slave- 
holding and hope your creed will grow still 
smaller so that it will shut out no true child of 
God who accepts Christ in all the fullness of 
his character; but there are brethren here who 
would not like to accept your creed nor take 
the name Wesleyan." We said that it is mani- 
fest that in order to success we must have a 
creed so simple that all true followers of Christ 
can unite on it. A.nd we must have a name 
so catholic that all the true followers of Christ 



40 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

can wear it. This must be Christian as des- 
ignating individual character; and church of 

Christ at as desifjnatinor the local church. 

Thus were we led by the logic of events to 
see the wisdom of the plan long before 
marked out by our Lord when he said: "Nei- 
ther pray I for these alone, but for all them 
that believe on me through their word, that 
they may be one." 

The basis of union was Christ, a person — 
not opinions — but a person. "Other founda- 
tion can no man lay than is laid, which is 
Jesus Christ." The reason for fellowship was 
manifested faith in Christ as the Savior from 
sin. On this foundation came together those 
who had been known as Presbyterians, Disci- 
ples, Methodists and Baptists. 

A question now arose in my mind as to the 
propriety of my receiving aid from the Amer- 
ican Home Missionar}; Society. I gave to the 
Society my reasons why I must decline fur- 
ther aid : They were as follows : 

1. In securing and sending an annual con- 
tribution to your Society I will thereb}^ help 
sustain and build up slave-holding. 

2. However small my influence may be, 
my continued reception of your aid would be 



JOHN G. FEE. 41 

thus far an endorsement of your policy; this 
I may not give. 

The society repHed they thought I ought 
to be satisfied if they were wilhng to give aid 
to me in my protest against slave-holding; 
and in reference to pastors aided, their work 
of inquiry was ended when the pastors are 
regarded as "rectus in ecclesia," ^'right in 
church." This was Congregationalism "with 
a vengeance." 

I replied: "Christ is not the minister of sin 
and you ought not to be, and I may not help 
you in this." 

Just at this time, Jan. 17, 1846, Bro. A. A, 
Phelps, who was secretary of the Union Mis- 
sionary Societ}^ merged soon after this into 
the American Missionary Association, wrote 
to me saying, "I think you should stay where 
you are and itinerate three or six months, as 
you can. I hope you will, on no account, 
withdraw your application for a re-commission 
from the Home Missionary Society; if they 
refuse, they make AboHtionism a test of church 
standing as Dickerson has in his refusal to 
recommend you. Do not let them off — urge 
and insist on a decision of the 'new case.' " 

The Society did not want to be "let off." 



42 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

I felt I must let them off. Whilst they man- 
ifestly, for some reason, desired to help sustain 
one anti-slavery church in the South they were 
at the same time sustaining fifty two slave- 
holding churches in the South. This was 
blowing hot and cold — serving God and the 
devil — doing evil on a large scale, that good 
might come on a small scale. I said: "I may 
not bid you God speed in your wicked policy," 
and returned their commission. 

The little church established on the one 
foundation, Christ, and its pastor disenthralled 
from all slave-holding alliances, and the little 
cottage now enclosed, one room with one coat 
of plastering on and that not dry, the humble 
pastor, wife and first-born child entered. 
With a small case of books on the right, a 
small cupboard on the left, our little Laura in 
a cradle in the middle, a bed behind, at night- 
fall Matilda and I sat down before a cheerful 
fire in an open fireplace, without a cloud of 
the unseen future before us. 

In this little room sixteen feet square, with 
bed and table and with seats constructed by 
extending a plank from one chair to another, 
we had preaching Sunday evenings after I 
returned from distant appointments. Monday 



JOHN G. FEE. 43 

morning whilst I made fires, fed the horse and 
milked the cow, my wife swept out dirt from 
previous muddy shoes and scrubbed out stains 
from tobacco spit as far as she could. The 
one end to be attained, at whatever sacrifice, 
was the lodgment of fundamental truth in the 
minds of the people. 

As we began to plant ourselves more fixedly 
in the State, the slave power busied itself in 
efforts to stir up opposition and mob violence. 
A plot was arranged to waylay me on my 
way to an appointment some fifteen miles 
distant. Some men who were friends pro- 
posed to go and defend me from assailants; 
but said they would not go without arms. I 
said: "I carry no weapons; I know retalia- 
tion will destroy society. If I suffer I will 
make my appeal to the civil courts." These 
friends declined going. My wife said she 
would go. The babe was left with a kind 
neighbor woman. 

Saturday morning found Matilda and me each 
on horseback, winding our way through the 
hills of Lew^is to our appointment fifteen miles 
distant on the banks of the Ohio river. No 
molestation that day. That night during the 
hour of preaching some "roughs" took our 



44 AUTOBIOGKAFHY OF 

horse out of the stable, took him off into the 
forest, tied some billets of wood to his tail and 
started him, thinking he would be greatly 
frightened and they see some fun. "Ben" 
took the matter so gently that they declared 
he had "religion" and let him go at pleasure. 
When my wife found that her horse was gone, 
the horse her father had given to her, and that 
he was probably being abused, she was troub- 
led and "sweat at the eyes." Old Father 
Rankin, John Rankin, had come across the 
Ohio river to attend the meeting; and byway 
of comfort to ni}^ wife, said : "Why, Sister 
Fee, I have had my horse's tail shaved and 
mane cropped and one ear cut off, and he 
rode just as well afterward as before." Not 
long after "Ben" was found quietly browsing 
among the bushes and waiting to do his part 
in further evangelization. 

The next day it was confidently asserted 
assault would be made on our way home. 
The proposed assault, however, had been dis- 
concerted by the sudden death of the leader, 
who was killed in a saw-mill. As angry mem- 
bers of the proposed mob two men waylaid 
us, but were hindered from personal violence 
by the presence of a sturdy farmer, who had 



JOHN G. FEE. 45 

purposely planned to return home with us. 
One of the assailants, with a club in hand, 
rode rapidly up to me in a threatening atti- 
tude; but my wife, dexterous on horseback as 
he, at each moment interposed herself be- 
tween me and H. After two or three passes, 
the sturdy farmer rode up and said: "Han- 
nahs, if you do not clear out from here, I will 
get down and beat you till there shall not be a 
sound bone in your body." Hannahs con- 
tented himself by dismounting and throwing 
stones, one of which struck me, but without 
serious injury to me. 

Whilst not seriously injured, I saw this was 
my opportunity to show, that whilst I did not 
avenge personal injury I would show respect 
to civil law by appeaHng to it for protection 
and gaining, if possible, a decision of the 
courts in favor of free speech and personal 
security. I brought the case before the grand 
jury, and through that into the circuit court. 

The judge was a slaveholder. He said to 
the court: "Gentlemen, Mr. Fee is an Aboli- 
tionist, and if slave-holding is sinful, then the 
Abohtionists are right. They say, repent of 
sin immediately; and you would not say to 
pickpockets, quit your sin gradually." But 



46 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

having called for a Bible, he opened it and 
said: "Slavery is not sinful; the Bible sanc- 
tions it/' and referred to the case of Abraham, 
and the instruction of Moses to buy of the 
heathen round about, and of Paul as return- 
ing Onesimus, "a runaway slave." Closing 
the book, he said: "But, gentlemen, free 
speech must be had; and Mr. Hannahs ought 
to be ashamed of his conduct, and the court 
must fine him." 

This decision gave to me a measure of pro- 
tection in Lewis County, but did not wholly 
suppress the spirit of violence in adjoining 
counties. 

About this time, at my suggestion, a peti- 
tion was sent to Cassius M. Clay, requesting 
him to come to Lewis County, July 4th, 1846, 
and make to us an address on the subject of 
slavery and emancipation. The call was 
signed by twenty-seven citizens, to be sent to 
Mr. Clay. 

Mr. Clay accepted the invitation, commend- 
ed highly the courage of the men who had 
made the call, but sent back the sad intelli- 
gence that he must defer the purposed address 
until his return from the w^ar with Mexico. 

Accompanying this call went the letter of a 



JOHN G. FKt:. 47 

neighbor, saying: "The anti-slavery senti- 
ment of the community will soon be embodied, 
and it will be made known that no man, Whig 
or Democrat, can have their votes who is a 
practical slaveholder, or an apologist for sla- 
very." This was sent to Mr. Clay and pub- 
lished in the True American. This stirred 
the slave power, especially in Mason County? 
the adjoining county. An article appeared in 
the Maysville Eagle, which in some respects 
misrepresented the statement of the former, 
by saying: "This is as rank Abolitionism as 
was ever uttered by Birney or Tappan. No 
slaveholder is hereafter to receive the votes 
of these simon-pure liberty men; and they 
who dare to apologize for the institutions of 
our country are thus denounced and pro- 
scribed, and this is heralded forth as the sen- 
timents of Lewis County." This was a mis- 
representation. The sentiments only of those 
organized were declared. 

Mr. Clay, having declined then to come, 
and the slave power raging, some ten men of 
the twenty-seven who had signed the call in- 
viting Mr. Clay to come, took back their 
names; and upon myself, Mr. Clay's corres- 
pondent, were gathered the severest anath- 



48 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

emas, and threats of violence and of the utter 
destruction of my house. The night for 
the work of desperation was fixed. My 
friends expected the threatened violence, 
and a man whom we knew as a friend and 
one who had opportunity to know the move- 
ments of our enemies came three times during 
the day and entreated that I leave my home 
or I would certainly be killed. At night we 
went to bed as usual. The night was one of 
terrific darkness, thunder and lightning. 
Many, with purposes of violence, did gather 
at the place of rendezvous, but dispersed be- 
fore the frowning elements. Soon after this 
the prime mover was killed by a tenant. The 
slain man, though a major, a slaveholder with 
large property, was so little esteemed by his 
neighbors that, as I was informed, scarce- 
ly enough gathered to give to him a decent 
burial. Another man who shot at me whilst 
I was sitting in my house, was soon afterward 
drowned in the Ohio river. 

For reasons manifest my audiences were 
small. Many whose sympathies were with 
the principles of justice and liberty were 
afraid to be seen listening to me in public 
audiences. I saw I must try and reach the 



JOHN G. FEE. 49 

people at their homes, at their firesides; and I 
decided I would write and publish an anti- 
slavery manual, a hand-book showing the 
testimony of God's Word against slavery, — 
the evil consequences of slavery upon society, 
and with these show the unity of the human 
race— that verily "God hath made of one 
blood all nations of men." The matter for 
this manual I prepared, and, for best effect, 
decided to publish in Kentucky, — in Maysville, 
a city near by. 

Whilst prehminary arrangements were be- 
ing made, a man of wealth and influence in 
that city wrote to me a letter, saying that if I 
should come to that city and attempt to 
publish an anti-slavery book he would head a 
band of sixty men, ride me on a rail and duck 
me in the Ohio river. I went on with my 
pubHshing, and attended to proof-reading 
there in the city. Whilst there the conductor 
of the press said to me: «'My father, Judi^e 
Chambers and John A. McClung, will this 
forenoon make speeches in the court house. 
Come, go down." I went. 

I had a few days previously headed a peti- 
tion to Congress praying that Texas might be 
admitted as a free State and thus delivered 



50 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

from slaveiy, which our own statesman, 
Henry Clay, admitted to be a curse. As the 
meeting was about to adjourn, a httle fellow, 
a practicing attorney at the bar, well known 
as Tom Payne, jumped to his feet and said : 
"There is a matter here that ought to be now 
attended to. There is," said he, "a certain 
man by the name of John G. Fee up here in 
the edge of Lewis County, who has headed a 
petition to Congress in which he denounces 
Henry Clay, the son of Kentucky. It is time 
such men were silenced and driven out of the 
county." As he ended this sentence, I arose 
to my feet, and addressing the chairman, 
Judge Reed, the noted defender of slavery 
and free speech previously referred to, said: 
"Mr. Chairman, I happen to know something 
about that petition. I drafted it and know 
that Henry Clay is not denounced. So far as 
he is concerned, his words are commended." 
Cries went up: "Take him out; take him 
out." Instantly almost the whole house arose 
to their feet. Some tried to get me into the 
aisle. I refused. I knew that was not the 
place of security to me. A stout man, a 
stone-mason, stepped to my side, and with an 
uplifted, brawny arm, said: "Men, I have 



JOHN O. FEt:. 51 • 

been in one war (1812), and will be in an- 
other before this man is taken out." He 
knew me. 

Judge Reed, with stentorian voice, cried 
out: "Sit down, men, sit down. I would be 
ashamed to preside in a meeting where a man 
is publicly assailed and yet not allowed a 
word in defense. One of old said: 'Though 
you slay me, hear me.' Speak on, speak on." 
I did so, and the audience dispersed quietly. 
We here scored another count for free speech 
and personal security. 

I went on with the publication of my book, 
and distributed with my own hands many copies 
in the city. 

Afterward the American Missionary As- 
sociation abridged the book and distributed 
many copies in this and other States. 

I wrote, for more general distribution, a 
tract on the sinfulness of slave-holding; another 
on the duty of non-fellowship of slaveholders 
in church relationship, and another on the 
folly of colonization as a plan of emancipation. 

Just about this time the occasion for another 
protest came, — a protest against secret orders. 
We had a union temperance society, into 
which all, young and old, rich and poor, could 
come, "without money and without price." 



52 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

It was proposed that there be formed in our 
school-house a society known as "Sons of 
Temperance." I was requested to join and 
give my influence. I declined the invitation 
to join, and in a public discourse gave my 
reasons for so declining. 

First, impracticable. The form of organi- 
zation — initiation fees, with passwords and 
closed doors, — such will shut out a large portion 
of society, will fail to meet the needed end, — 
the reclamation of the masses. 

Second, the secret principle is wrong. ( i ) 
It is contrary to the genius of republican in- 
stitutions, where every movement affecting 
the interests of society is supposed to be open 
to the view of all. 

2. Unfair. Such societies being secret, 
give one class of men an unknown and an 
undue advantage over the other members of 
society, — an unfair advantage. 

3. Dangerous. Such societies give oppro- 
tunities not only for unfair advantages, but 
opportunities to bad men to devise measures 
not only injurious to society but perilous to 
governments. Such sad experiences have 
occurred. 

4. Such societies are selfish, and as such, 



JOHN G. FEE. 53 

contrary to the spirit and letter of Christianity, 
(i) They reject the very objects of charity — 
"the halt, the lame, the blind,"— help those 
who help the society and can help themselves. 
(2) Usually they reject men in this country 
simply because they are colored. This fosters 
the spirit of caste. ( 3 ) This society, as such, 
hides from the world whatever Hght or good 
it may have, — "puts it under a bushel." 
Christianity requires that we let our Hght 
shine ; if we have good works let them be seen. 
If there be any thing good, society ought to 
have the benefit of it. (4) This was the 
precedent of our Lord, who said: "I spake 
openly in the temple, and in secret have I said 
nothing." He is our pattern. 

It was then said : "The amount of secrecy 
is small." I said, the principle is just as 
certainly vicious when small as when large; 
a poison is the same, little or much. I said 
the devil tempts not to vice in its gross form : 
at first only in small proportions, and that 
veiled by some assumed good; "he comes as 
an angel of light." I said : "Some of you 
know that it is just in this way Jesuitism now 
works. It does evil that good may come." 

I said, "I have traced the history of your 



54 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

movement. It was concocted almost ex- 
clusively by Free-masons and Odd-fellows." 
These men knew that temperance was a good 
and reputable thing, and that if the youth of 
the land could have their minds famiharized 
with the secret principle, made reputable by 
association with acknowledged good, then it 
will be easy, after a time, for such to step into 
other orders with larger measures of secrecy, 
even those associated with blasphemous oaths, 
a false religion, a religion like that of Free- 
masonry, which claims to fit men for the lodge 
above, — "a religion in which all men can 
agree," — Jews and pagans, Mohammedans 
and Parsees; a religion of mere sacrilegious 
rites; a rehgion in which the name of Christ 
is excluded from every official pra3^er; Christ 
treated as Mohammed, Zoroaster or Con- 
fucius; yes, worse, the name expurgated from 
Scriptures quoted. — See Mackey's Ritual, pp. 
384-5. I said to my hearers: "Beware of 
those stepping stones that lead to institutions 
that are blaphemous, delusive, and perilous to 
society and republican institutions." 

The "Sons" did not live long in that region. 
Afterwards, when I had moved to Madison 
Co., w^here I now live, I was told by an influ- 



JOHN G. FEE. 55 

ential friend, who was a Free-mason, that if I 
would join the Masons I would be protected 
from the mobs. I replied: "If my protection 
and immunity from violence is to be secured 
by connection with orders at once delusive, 
selfish, perilous to society and treacherous to 
Christ, then I cannot have protection from 
such men." Before I came to Madison, I was 
waylaid, shot at, clubbed, stoned; by force 
kept out of church houses; and since I came 
to Madison, have been in the hands of six 
regularly organized mobs of violent men, yet 
have I not shown the secret sign of distress, 
nor muttered the words, "Is there no help for 
the widow's son?" 

I have by these persecutions been brought 
into deeper sympathy with Him whose judg- 
ment was taken from Him and who said: 
"Blessed are ye when men shall revile you 
and persecute you, and say all manner of evil 
against you falsely for my sake . " His gra- 
cious benediction was more than the maledic- 
tions of men. I yet live, and live to praise 
Him for that abundant grace which, like the 
"red thread," has run through the cordage of 
my life. 



56 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 



CHAPTER III. 

Commission from the A. M. A. — Preaching and Church 
Building. — Redemption of a Slave Woman. — Her 
Effort to Free her Children. — Her Capture and Im- 
prisonment. 

In 1848 I received a commission from the 
American Missionary Association — appro- 
priation $200, as I now remember. Previous 
to this, for more than a year, my wife and I 
had lived on our own small resource. My 
wife was industrious; and I beheve no man 
ever accused me of being idle. Aside from 
necessit}^, we had resolved that we would not 
only advocate free labor, but also, as far as we 
could, we would dignify labor by the work of 
our hands. 

By this time we had a Httle frame house 
built by the community to be used as a school- 
house and a church house. The Lord oranted 
to us a manifestation of his presence. Twenty- 
one persons were converted, a prayer meeting 
and Sunday-school sustained. 

In this year, 1848, I began regular preach- 



JOHN G. FEE. 57 

ing in Bracken County, my native country and 
the native country of my wife. The place 
for preaching was in a school-house, distant 
from my home in Lewis twenty-five miles. 
To this appointment I came every second 
week. Here Wm. Goodell visited us and 
preached two or three sermons. I continued 
regular preaching. The first person who 
there came forward to confess Christ, was my 
mother-in-law, Elizabeth Hamilton. Next 
came John D. Gregg, her brother, a faithful 
man. One after another came. In process 
of time came Mary Gregg, mother of the first 
two who came. She had secured to a bond- 
man a deed of emancipation before she joined 
the church. Thus the testimony of the 
church was kept clear from any appearance 
of connivance at any form of oppression. 

Soon it became manifest that we must have 
a larger house. We decided to build. We 
were all of one mind that the highest security 
demanded that we build a brick house. We 
so decided. I asked the question: "Shall 
the seats be free?" The question was ap- 
parently a surprise. One after another said: 
"Certainly." "But," I said, "do you mean what 
you say?" The reply was: "We suppose 



58 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

we do." I said: "If when the house shall 
be erected, a colored man, free or slave, shall 
come in and seat himself as any other man, 
where he thinks he can hear to the best ad- 
vantage, will that with you be all right?" 
John D. Gregg said, <'Yes;" some others said 
"Yes." After a silence a good brother whose 
probity was known all over the county, said : 
"Bro. Fee, that is my rule in my house; and 

when Billie C comes in he sits down at my 

table as I do; but in a place of public worship 
as you here propose, j^ou cannot do this. If 
you attempt it one brick will not be left on 
another." I said, "In the Hght of your own 
example to do so is right, is it not?" "Yes, 
Bro. Fee; but all things that are lawful are 
not expedient." I said: "In mere measures, 
that may often be true, but in questions of 
morals — a religious movement like this — it 
will be wise to do what is confessedly right." 
He then said he had subscribed $ioo, and 
would now leave $50 for us to try with. 
Another took back part of his subscription. 
Others increased theirs. A young man then 
living in the community, an earnest, active 
Abolitionist who loved to buttonhole every 
conservative preacher he could get his hands 



JOHN G. FEE. 59 

on, said, "You put up the walls and I will put 
on the roof." The walls went up, and I. B. 
C. put on the roof. The little brick church 
yet stands. At the end of entrance, above 
the doorways, is a white marble slab, placed 
there by John D. Gregg; and of his own 
devising are inscribed these words, "Free 
Church of Christ." The sentiment it ex- 
pressed was, church of Christ, undenomi- 
national, free to all men. 

The church was blessed. A generation of 
young people w^as raised up there who, with 
their children, and even children's children, 
have gone out to disseminate sentiments there 
learned and to bless society wherever they 
have gone. The church there, with its long 
protest against slavery, caste, sectarianism, 
still lives. It is like the church in Lewis 
County, feeble and without a pastor. If there 
is any thing I desire in this world, it is to find 
some faithful man who will go and minister to 
that people, and then some faithful men and 
women who will sustain that man. 

In the midst of this season of church plant- 
ing and church building, there arose a sudden 
and an unexpected duty; one which speedily 
involved much perplexity of mind and then 



60 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

anguish of spirit, not to me alone, but to others 
also; and this not for a day, a week, a month, 
but, more or less, for years. The relation- 
ship once entered upon could not be reHn- 
quished without moral delinquency. 

The incipient duty was the redemption of a 
woman, a slave then in my father's family. 
This woman had lived for years with her hus- 
band in the same family and was then the 
mother of mothers in the same family— -the 
mother of daughters who were mothers. 
This grandmother, yet comparatively young, 
was a member of the same church where my 
father, mother and sister were members. 
Here, slaves, though members with their 
masters, were not allowed to sit in the same 
part of the church house nor at the same time 
partake of the Lord's Supper with their white 
fellow Christians. The slaves at this time sat 
in a gallery at the end of the church house, 
and when white Christians had been served, 
one of the elders would say: "Now you black 
ones, if you wish to commune, come down." 
This they did by an outside, uncovered 
rough stairway, and then around outside the 
house came on to the doors of entrance, and 
facing the congregation came to the seats 



JOHN G. FEE. 61 

vacated for them, and thus ate the Lord's 
Supper. Thus did slaves indeed "strive to 
enter into the kingdom of heaven." 

Intelligence came to me that my brother 
had advised my father to sell the woman re- 
ferred to, for the reason that there were more 
women in the family than were needed. 

I said to my wife : "I cannot redeem all 
slaves, nor even all in my father's family, but 
the labors of Julett and her husband contrib- 
uted in part to the purchase of the land I yet 
own in Indiana, and to sell those lands and 
redeem her will be in some measure returning 
to her and her husband what they have toiled 
for." My wife said : "Do what you think is 
right." I took my horse, rode twenty-five 
miles to my father's house and spent the night. 
In the morning of the next day I sought an 
opportunity when my father was alone, and 
having learned that he would sell, asked what 
he would take for Julett. He fixed his price. 
I said: "Will you sell her to me if I bring to 
you the money?" He said yes. I immedi- 
ately rode to Germantown and borrowed the 
requisite amount of money by mortgaging my 
remaining tract of land for the payment. 
Whilst there I executed a bill of sale, so that 



62 AUTOBIOGBAPHY OF 

without delay my father could sign it, before 
he even returned from the field at noon. I 
tendered to him the money and the bill of 
sale. He signed the bill of sale, and took the 
money. I immediately went to *'Add," the 
husband of Julett, and told him I had bought 
Julett and should immediately secure by 
law her freedom. I said to him: "I would 
gladly redeem you but I have not the means." 
He replied: "I am glad you can free her; I 
can take care of myself better than she can." 
I went to the house, wrote a perpetual pass 
for the woman, gave it to her, and said, "You 
are a free woman; be in bondage to no man." 
Tears of gratitude ran down her sable cheeks. 
I then told her that at the first county-court 
day I would take her to the clerk's office, 
where her height could be taken and she be 
otherwise described, and a record of her free- 
dom made. This was just before the amend- 
ment to the State Constitution that forbade 
emancipation in the State. At noon my 
father came in and told my mother of 
the transaction. My mother was displeased, 
— did not want to spare the woman from 
certain work for which she was fitted. 
My father came to me and requested that I 



JOHN G. FEE. 63 

cancel the contract and give up the bill of 
sale. I said to him, "Here is my horse, and I 
have a house and lot in Lewis County; I will 
give them to you if you so desire; but to sell 
a human being I may not." He became very 
angry and went to the freed woman and said 
to her, "When you leave this house never put 
your foot on my farm again, for I do not in- 
tend to have a free nigger on my farm.'* The 
woman, the wife and mother, came to me and 
said, "Master says if I leave here I shall never 
come back again; I cannot leave my children; 
I would rather go back into slavery." I said, 
I have done what I regarded as my duty. To 
now put you back into slavery, I cannot. We 
must simply abide the consequences. The 
woman was in deep distress and helpless as a 
child. Although I had my horse and was 
ready to ride, I felt I could not leave the help- 
less one until a w^ay of relief should open. 
After a time Julett came to me and said, **As 
long as mistress shall live I can stand it; I 
would rather stay." I said, "You are a free 
woman and must make your own decision. 
If my father will furnish to you a home, and 
clothe and feed you, and you shall choose as a 
free woman to stay, all well; but to sell you 



64 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

back into slavery, I cannot." To this propo- 
sition to furnish a home to the freed woman 
my father agreed. There was now a home 
for the freed woman, and this with her hus- 
band and children and grand-children. 

That day of agony was over and eventide 
had come. I spent the night. The next 
morning just as I was about starting back to 
my home, my father said to me, *'Julett is 
here on my premises, and I will sell her be- 
fore sundown if I can." I turned to him and 
said, "Father, I am now that woman's only 
guardian. Her husband cannot protect her, 
— I only can. I must do as I would be done 
by; and though it is hard for me to now say 
to you what I intended to sa}', yet if you sell 
that woman, I will prosecute 3^ou for so doing, 
as sure as you are a man." I saw the peril 
of the defenseless Vv^oman, I would gladly 
have cast from me the cup of a further con- 
test, but I saw that to leave her, though now 
a free woman, was not the end of obligation. 
I felt forcibly the applicability of the words, 
"Cursed be he that doeth the work of the 
Lord neghgently, and cursed be he that keep- 
eth back the sword from blood." Jer. 48: 10. 
I mounted my horse and rode twelve miles 



JOHN G. FEE, 65 

where I could get legal counsel, — counsel on 
which I could rely, I found that if I left the 
woman on my father's premises without any 
pubhc record of her having been sold, the fact 
of her being then on his premises would be 
regarded as "prima facie" evidence that she 
was his property and that he could sell her. 
I also found that in as much as he had sold 
her to me, I could, by law, compel him to do 
that which was just and right,- — make a record 
of the fact of sale. I rode back twelve miles, 
told my father what was his legal obligation, 
and asked him to conform to it. He said he 
would not. I then said to him, "It will be a 
hard trial for me to arraign my father in a 
civil court, for neglect of justice to a helpless 
woman, and also for a plain violation of law; 
but I will do so, as sure as you are a man, if 
you do not make the required record of sale." 
After hesitancy and delay he made the record. 
These were hours of distress to me, to my 
father, to my mother, and to the ransomed 
woman; but the only way to ultimate peace, 
was to hold on rigidly to the right; though in 
so doing I had, in the Gospel sense, to leave 
father, mother, brother, sisters, houses, lands, 
— all, for Christ's sake. I was conscious that 
no other motive impelled me. 



G6 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

The legal process ended, the woman was 
then secure, and in a home, for the time being, 
with her husband and children. Not long 
after this my mother died. The services of 
the freed woman were the more needed 
where she then was. To her were born, into 
freedom, three more children. About this 
time her husband, through a friend, found the 
record of the time of his bond service. He, 
by legal process, secured his freedom and 
recovered several hundred dollars, as com- 
pensation for services rendered beyond the 
time he should have enjoyed his liberty. 

After a time the freed woman decided to 
take her three free children, and go to Ohio, 
where she could have better opportunities for 
herself and her little ones. The war of 1861- 
5 was approaching. Information came to her 
that my brother, whose home was in New 
Orleans, La., would, on his return from New 
York, take all the slave children South. This 
mother determined to try to save her children 
from such a fate, and get them, if possible, 
into freedom. She came to Kentucky to the 
old home. In the night season she gathered 
together two sons, three daughters and four 
grand-children. (Another son had previously 



JOHN G. FEE. 67 

been sold, another slave had gone "to parts 
unknown".) One of these daughters and three 
grand-children had to be gathered from an 
adjoining county. Monday morning the 
mother, with five children and three grand- 
children, appeared on the banks of the Ohio 
river. The sun had already risen and the 
friends on the other side had gone. The 
mother, her children and grand-children were 
captured and put into jail for safe keeping. 
My father immediately sold all but the freed 
woman to a slave trader, who shipped all of 
them to the South. From these we have 
never heard even a trace. 

At the time of this, sad occurrence I was 

eastward, attending a meeting of the A. M. 

Association. On my way home, and whilst at 

Cincinnati, Levi Coffin said to me, "John, 

Julett is in jail, and thy father hath sold all of 

her children to the slave trader." Instead of 

going home to my family then out in Madison 

Co., and, as I had reason to believe they were 

not in jail, I went up to Bracken County to 

my father's house. I enquired into the facts. 

He said, *'Yes, I have sold them and have the 

money in my pocket." I immediately went to 

see that faithful man, John D. Gregg, and 



68 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

asked him to bail the woman. He agreed to 
do so. He went to the county judge and 
offered to be security for the woman's presence 
at the time for her trial. The judge accepted 
the offer, and was preparing an obligation for 
Brother Gregg to sign, when a young 
attorney came up and served a writ on the 
woman for stealing slaves (her own child and 
three grand-children) from another county. 
The woman was immediately remanded to 
prison. 

My wife was in Bracken County at the 
time. She went to the prison and asked the 
privilege of seeing Julett and her children. 
The wife of the keeper only was there. She 
told my wife that no one was allowed to go 
into the jail but the keeper himself. My wife 
then asked if she could speak to Julett. The 
wife of the keeper said, "Yes, you can speak 
through the floor," and turned aside a piece 
of carpet that covered a crevice in the floor. 
My wife approached and called. Julett knew 
her voice and cried out, "Oh, Mis' Tilda; 
where is Master Gregg?" (Gregg is my 
middle name; I was known by that name in 
boyhood days.) My wife said, "He is east- 
ward, — in Massachusetts." Then she cried 



JOHN G. FEE. 69 

out, "Oh, Mis' Tilda, what will they do with 
me?" My wife replied, "They can do no 
more than send you to the penitentiary; don't 
be distressed. You have committed no 
crime ; for what mother would not try to get 
her children out of slavery?" My wife said 
she could then hear the young mothers and 
their children crying and sobbing below. My 
wife again said to Julett, "They can only 
send you to Frankfort" (the place of the 
State's prison). "We will come to see you 
there." By this time white men at the door 
were cursing, and the jailor's wife was mani- 
festly uneasy. My wife left. As previously 
stated the children and grand-children were 
sold and shipped South. The mother had her 
trial, and was sentenced to the State's prison. 
Here, let me say, the torture of the body is 
terribly cruel, and yet it is the smallest part 
of the crime of human slavery. I have seen 
women tied to a tree or a timber and whipped 
with cow-hides on their bare bodies until their 
shrieks would seem to rend the very heavens. 
I have seen a man, a father, guilty only of the 
crime of absenting himself from work for a 
day and two nights, on his return home 
whipped with a cow-hide on his bare flesh 



70 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

until his blood ran to his heels. Thousands 
of slaves have been whipped and beaten to 
death even for trivial offences, as that of a 
slave in a county adjoining to this, whipped to 
death for going, in the hour of night, to see 
his wife, in violation of the master's com- 
mands. Yet this torture of the bod}^ w^as the 
least part of the agony of slavery. The acnie 
of the crime was on the soul. The crushing 
of human hearts, sundering the ties of hus- 
band and wife, parent and child, shrouding all 
of manhood in the long night of despair, — the 
crime was on the soul! The agony of our 
Lord in Gethsemane was that of the soul, not 
that of the body. 

The youth of this generation cannot com- 
prehend the enormity of human slavery, — the 
effect of it upon society, — how it blunted the 
sensibilities, outraged every element of justice, 
fostered licentiousness, violence and crime of 
almost every description. And yet those who 
practiced and sustained this iniquity, often 
occupied commanding positions both in church 
and state! And here I wish to say, that the 
same misrepresentation of Christianity is seen 
in those who maintain the spirit and practice 
of caste, — a relic of the barbarism of slavery. 



JOHN G, FEE. 71 

To crush by slight or invidious conduct, in 
church or in civil societ}^, any man or woman 
of merit, is as truly oppressive and wicked as 
slavery itself. I speak of conduct toward 
meritorious persons. As to what our con- 
duct should be we need only to ask what our 
Lord, our great Exampler, would do were he 
here in flesh. 

Our family visit to Julett Miles, whilst yet 
in prison, will be given in another chapter. 



72 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 



CHAPTER IV. 

Imprisonment of a Colporter. — Assault on Myself. — 
House Burning. — Church House. — Baptism. — Con- 
sideration of the Subject. — Baptism of Myself and 
Wife. — Invitation to Madison County. — Organization 
of a Church. — Call to the Church. — Selection of a 
Place. — Name, Berea. 

Other scenes of trial awaited us whilst yet 
in Lewis County. We had colporters in 
the field who were distributing Bibles, publica- 
tions of the American Tract Society, and anti- 
slavery documents. One of these colporters 
was charged falsely with telling a slave how 
he might get into a free State. The offense 
was alleged to have been committed in the 
adjoining county, and the colporter was 
therefore arrested and taken to that county 
and there imprisoned to await his trial, I 
went to Maysville, Ky., the county seat of 
that county, that I might minister to the com- 
fort of the prisoner and secure counsel for his 
defense. On my way home, in a retired 
place, Thornton H., a violent man, living not 



JOHN G. FEE. T3 

far from my home and openly charp^ed with 
having more children by a slave woman in his 
kitchen, than by his lawful wife, rushed sud- 
denly upon me, and with a club he had gath- 
ered from the woods, struck me across my 
head, cutting through a panama hat and leav- 
ing a severe bruise. He struck so near his 
hold on the club that he broke it. Had he 
struck me on the back of my head he would 
have killed me. For some unaccountable 
reason he said not a word, turned his horse 
suddenly from me, and plunged down a very 
steep embankment and escaped into a forest. 
Not long after this, in a re-encounter with an- 
other violent man, he was cut across the abdo- 
men, his bowels gushed out, and he died. 
Thus was the Scripture verified before the 
people, "the bloody and deceitful man shall 
not live out half his days." A like fatality 
followed the men in Bracken, Mason, and 
Lewis counties, who in like manner had laid 
violent hands upon me. In common with 
some others, I had the conviction that God 
was my shield. 

In the midst of this excitement, the little 
house used as a school and church house was 
burned by a poor white man, who was after- 



74 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

ward known as a "hired tool." I said to the 
fiiends that we must have a larger and a bet- 
ter house in w^hich to worship. The church 
members were poor, and means small. One 
young man who afterwards prepared for the 
ministry, said, "I have not money, but I have 
two strong hands, and will give fifty days' 
work toward the erection of the house." My 
wife said, "Obed, I'll board you." I procured 
a cross-cut saw, w-ent with neighbors to the 
woods, cut logs and helped get them to the 
sawmill, secured contributions, employed car- 
penters, put on shingles, employed plasterers 
and made mortar; and it now being winter 
season, I made and kept up fires until mid- 
night to keep the plastering from freezing. I 
shared in the W'ork until seats were in the 
house, and a rough desk was made from 
which to speak. 

Just at this time came a providence which 
has had no small share in shaping the convic- 
tions and activities of my life for the past 
thir^3^-five years. On one occasion, as I was 
passing from an appointment in Bracken 
County to my home then in Lewis County, I 
called to see Bro. Grundy, the pastor of the 
Presbyterian church in Maysville. As I was 



JOHN G. FEE. 75 

leaving he said to me : *'I have a Hitle book I 
would like to have you read. It is the work 
of Moses Stuart on Baptism. Stuart," said 
he, "is, as you know, one of the greatest 
scholars in America." 

I took the book, and rode on ten miles to 
my home. In my theological course I had not 
considered the subject of baptism. In my 
ministry, up to that time, I had been engaged 
in pressing the claim of the law of love in its 
application to slave-holding, spirit of caste, 
secretism and sectism. The church houses 
built and a measure of quietude secured, I 
then opened the book and found on page 50 
this concession: "In classical use the Greek 
word haftizo means, to dip, plunge or im- 
merse in any Hquid; all lexicographers and 
critics of any note are agreed in this." He 
then passed to the use of the word in the Sep- 
tuagint. The Septuagint is the Greek version 
of the Old Testament. In 2 Kings 5: 14 he 
rendered ebaftizeto by the English word 
"plunged." "Naaman plunged himself seven 
times in the Jordan." The propriety of this 
rendering is seen from the fact that here the 
verb ba^tizo is the synonym of the Hebrew 
word tabal. To this word Gesenius gives as 



76 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

the only meaning the words "dip," "immerse." 
I said, If the word means dip, immerse, in the 
Old Testament, it means the same in the New ; 
for in both the word is used in its religious 
sense, not merely in its secular sense, but in 
its religious sense; and in this it means "dip," 
"immerse." Also the Septuagint version was 
the version Paul evidently used in his reading 
of the Scriptures to Greeks in Corinth, in 
Rome and in all Asia Minor. In addressing 
a writing to them he would not use the word 
in a different sense from that in which he 
read it in the Septuagint. This sense was, as 
shown by Stuart, the meaning of the word in 
its classical use, which did not differ from the 
use of it by the common people. Also let it 
be noted that to make a revelation to the peo- 
ple, Paul had to use words in the sense in 
which they were understood by the people. 
Confessedly in the case of baftizo this was 
"dip," "immerse." 

I then passed with Stuart on to his consid- 
eration of the word in the New Testament. I 
saw he accepted "dip" as the proper render- 
ing of ^«//^ as found in Luke 16:24. In 
Mark 7: 4 he rendered baftismous by the 
word, washings — admissible only as a result- 



JOHN G. FEE. 77 

ant meaning; — not a proper meaning when 
the word is used to designate action; and 
here we know the pots, to secure the result 
of washing, cleansing, were dipped. (See 
Lev. II : 32, Num. 31 : 23.) He further added 
that the word in its figurative use, as in Luke 
12: 50, Mark 10: 39, means "overwhelm, and 
is so used in the classics." 

Stuart, in his closing consideration, adds 
the testimony of the early fathers of the church, 
as Pastor of Hermas, Justin Martyr and Ter- 
tulHan; the latter as saying, "There is no 
difference of consequence between those 
whom John immersed in the Jordan or Peter 
in the Tiber"; and then sums all up by saying: 
"The passages which refer to immersion are 
so numerous in the fathers that it would take 
a little volume merely to recite them"; then 
closes by a quotation from F. Brenner, a 
Catholic writer "of learning and ability," as 
saying that for thirteen hundred years baptism 
was •generally and ordinarily performed by 
the immersion of a man under water. This 
concession, said Stuart, is the more important, 
from the fact that sprinkling is the present 
practice of the Roman CathoHc church. 

After these concessions on the part of 

6 



78 AUTOBIOGBAPHY OF 

Moses Stuart, I took up my Bible and turned 
toIsa52: 15; the text so often quoted in 
favor of sprinkling. 

In our version, the rendering is: "So shall 
he sprinkle many nations." I saw from the 
connection that the passage had no reference 
to the Gospel ordinance, and that the word 
translated sprinkle, as I have shown in my 
book on Christian Baptism, when applied to 
mind, as there used, cannot mean scatter in 
particles, but refers to the joys of salvation 
through Christ, as there referred to. Literally 
rendered, it reads, "So shall he cause many na- 
tions to leap for joy." The context demands 
such a rendering. (See Gesenius, w^ord, JVaza,) 
I then turned to Ezek. 36: 25. I saw that this 
text also had no reference to the ordinance of 
baptism under the Gospel dispensation, but to 
the moral purification of the Jews when they 
should be gathered from the heathen nations. 
Let the reader study the connection. The 
water of "separation" or of purification as 
designated in the Hebrew text is not mayitn 
hayim, pure water, but mayim tahorim, water 
of purification, — a fluid made of the ashes of 
a red heifer and pure water. Barnes, in his 
comment on this passage, says: "The prac- 



JOHN G. FEE. 79 

tice of sprinkling with consecrated water is 
referred to as synonymous with purifying," — 
moral purification. 

The sprinkling of the water of "separation" 
was a part of the process of ceremonial cleans- 
ing; (see Num. 19: 19) — here used figura- 
tively— "synon3^mous with purifying." "From 
all your idols will I cleanse you," — you Jews. 
There is here no reference whatever to Chris- 
tian baptism. In my personal review, I passed 
to the New Testament, — saw that John bap- 
tized the people, not with the river Jordan, 
but in the river Jordan (Mark 1:5); and that 
our Lord, as stated in the ninth verse, was 
baptized — literally "plunged into the Jordan," 
— that as recorded in Acts 8 : 38, 39, Philip 
and the eunuch went down into the water and 
Philip baptized him, and they came up out of 
the water. I passed to Rom. 6: 3, 4, where 
Paul represented believers as having been 
baptized into death, i. e., into the relation of 
dead ones, and therefore properly, by symbol, 
buried with Christ by baptism into this rela- 
tion of dead ones— that as the bread and wine 
set forth the body and blood of our Lord, so 
the burial and resurrection of believers in 
their baptism set forth, not only their spiritual 



80 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

death to sin and resurrection to newness of 
life, but also the burial and resurrection of 
our Lord. 

I noticed the uniform concessions of such 
authorities as Tholuck, Lange, Whitby, Mac- 
knight, Clarke and others that the word bap- 
tizo means immerse; that Calvin himself said, 
"The word baptize means immerse entirely; 
and it is certain that the custom of thus en- 
tirely immersing was anciently observed in 
the church"; but he then assumes the papal 
dogma, "that the church has reserved to her- 
self the right to change the form somewhat, 
retaining the substance." I saw, what is true, 
that no man, and no set of men, have a right 
to change a positive command, an ordinance 
of divine appointment. To do so is fearful 
sacrilege: also in changing the form of a sym- 
bol we lose the truth thus symbolized. This 
is treachery; though good men and women 
see it not. I saw something of my responsi- 
bility as a preacher of the Gospel, — that it 
behooved me to get all the light I could on 
this divinely appointed ordinance. Dr. Ed- 
ward Beecher had published a book which, 
among pedo-baptists, was held in high repute. 
I ordered the book and read his argument 



JOHN G. FEE. 81 

about "purifying." I said, His mistake is that 
he takes the import of the rite for the mean- 
ing of the word, when used to designate the 
action of the rite. To illustrate, — the import 
of the rite of sprinkling is that of cleansing, as 
"hearts sprinkled, cleansed, from an evil con- 
science." But the meaning of the word when 
used to designate action means not to purify, 
but to scatter in particles; so the word bap- 
tize, when used to designate action, means 
immerse — not purify — which is the import of 
the rite itself. 

I saw many preachers do as Dr. Edward 
Beecher, baptize their fingers in water, then 
sprinkle a few drops on the head of the peni- 
tent [rhantize) ; — and then call this totally 
different act baptism; saying, "The thing to 
be done is to symbolize purification." I said 
if that had been the thing commanded, then 
the penitent might have been "passed through 
the fire"; for such was a symbol of purifica- 
tion. But God commanded a specific thing, 
"Go baptize, immerse"; and the connection 
shows that the immersion was in water; and 
this not merely for the purpose of symbolizing 
purification, but also other important facts; as 
our own spiritual death to sin and resurrection 



82 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

to "newness of life/' the burial and resurrec- 
tion of our Lord (Rom. 6: 4), and our own 
resurrection (i Cor. 15: 29.) I said, 
Sprinkling cannot emblematize these impor- 
tant facts. 

Other good men say the word means 
"wash"; and accordingly baptize their hands 
in water and take up enough to effect a local 
washing on the head; then assume that such 
a transaction is the fulfillment of the com- 
mand, "Go baptize them," — the person, — the 
entire man. 

We may here properly notice that wash is 
a resultant meaning; as wet is a resultant 
meaning of sprinkle, though not the meaning 
of the word when used to designate action . 
When used to designate action, the word 
sprinkle means scatter in particles. So w^ash 
is not the proper meaning of the word baptize, 
when used to designate action. Then the 
word as applied to men means "dip," im- 
merse (see 2 Kings 5: 14). The word here 
translated dip, immerse, is the same word 
which our Lord used when he said, "Go disciple 
all nations \^Baftizonites'\ — baptizing them." 
And if the w^ord in 2 Kings 5:14 means im- 
merse, then as found in Matt. 28:19, it means 



JOHN G. FEE. 83 

immerse. Also if immersion is baptism, which 
all admit as true, then a totally different act, 
like sprinkling or pouring, is not, I also saw 
that in positive commands as "eat," "drink," 
"circumcise," "baptize," we must have specific 
words indicating specific actions, or we would 
not know what to do — we would be without a 
revelation, — in this matter. I saw that this 
following or resultant meaning was the source 
of much of the confusion among the sects. 

I also saw some were following the tradi- 
tions and opinions of men. Others were 
following their feelings, — considering what 
would be most pleasant to themselves. 
Others were following their own reasoning as 
to what would be sufficient. I said. All this 
is going in the "way of Cain": and cannot be 
pleasing to God. I must do the thing he 
commands. 

I told my wife my convictions, — that I 
believed our Lord was immersed, and that 
his commission was that disciples be baptized, 
immersed, in his name. She replied: "I 
have been feeling so for two years." We 
had both been consecrated to the Lord by 
sprinkling — rhantism — but not by baptism. 
By this time "baptism" by sprinkling was to 



84 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

me as much a solecism as immersion by as- 
persion. We decided to live up to our convic- 
tions of duty and be baptized. But the ques- 
tion arose, whom shall we ask to baptize us? 
We did not know a minister in the State who 
would at that time be willing to baptize us, 
nor did we know one, with his practice of, 
or conservative notions about, slavery by 
whom we would be willing to be baptized. 

Through Wm. Goodell I had learned some- 
thing of the history of Francis Hawley, a 
native of North Carolina, and who,whilst there, 
maintained, as a Baptist minister, a strong pro- 
test against human slavery, and was at that 
time ministering to undenominational churches 
near to Syracuse, New York. I wrote to 
him and requested that he come to Kentucky 
and baptize me and my wife. He came; and 
near to our little cottage, and in the presence 
of our dear children and a large concourse of 
people, he buried us by baptism in the waters 
of Cabin Creek, Lewis Co., Ky. 

By that transaction we said to our children 
and to our neighbors, we believe Christ our 
Lord was buried, that he rose again, and 
that we in like manner will rise again and 
walk with him in glorified form. 



JOHN G, FEE. 85 

As opportunity allowed, I studied the sub- 
ject of baptism still more fully. I saw 
clearly that the ordinance of baptism was 
designed to emblematize great facts in the 
Gospel; like the burial and resurrection 
of our Lord, which sprinkling could not 
do, — that the truths thus set forth needed 
to be presented in a brief manner to 
young and old. According^ I prepared 
matter for a small book, on the topic 
of Christian Baptism, Action and Subjects, 
and published it. 

As a justification for this form of labor 
let me say, that whilst my life has been de- 
voted to the maintenance of the funda- 
mental principles of Christianity, love to 
God and love to man; and whilst I insist 
upon the fact that the inner, the spiritual is 
the vital feature of Christianity, I do not 
forget that the external rites of Christianity 
are important. They not only symbolize 
the internal, but the observance of them 
is also a demonstration to the outside 
world, but is that which actualizes to the 



86 AUTOBIOGBAPHY OF 

I have baptized all of my children, save 
Tappan, who died w^hen in his third year. 
I baptized my eldest son Burritt, when he 
was seven years old. At five he would read 
the Scriptures and pray with the family. He 
knew what trust in Christ was and the sym- 
bolic import of his burial in baptism. The 
four other children I baptized on profession 
of their faith in Christ; with this coincidence: 
each one at the time of his or her baptism 
was between the years of ten and eleven. 
Early in life children may be trained, — trained 
to love and serve the Lord. 

As opportunity allowed, I studied the subject 
of baptism still more fully. I saw that the or- 
dinance of baptism was designed to emblem- 
atize great facts in the Gospel, like the 
burial and resurrection of our Lord, which 
sprinkling could not do; that the truths thus 
set forth needed to be presented in a brief 
manner to young and old. Accordingly I pre- 
pared matter for a small book, on the subject 
of Christian Baptism, — Action and Subjects, 
and pubhshed the book. 

I never sprinkle, because I believe our Lord 
in his great commission commanded me to do 
something else, — baptize, not sprinkle. I say 



JOHN G. FEE. 87 

to believers, Study God's Word; live up to 
your convictions;! must live up to mine. I 
recognize the fact that our word baptize is 
not a translation, but simply the Greek word 
transferred with an English termination 
affixed and must therefore be interpreted by 
the reader of EngHsh. True behevers may 
differ in the interpretation. I feel that as a 
true Protestant and Christian, I must grant to 
a true behever the right of "private interpre- 
tation." I therefore fellowship in church 
relationship those who manifest true faith in 
Christ as their Saviour from sin, though they 
may make a mistake in the action they design 
as baptism. The mistake in the act of con- 
secration does not destroy Christian character. 
Our Lord prayed for the union of all true 
believers (John 17:21). We can be united on 
Christ: on opinions we cannot. We may 
expect that with human creeds and sects out 
of the way, men and women, delivered from 
the bias of party teaching, will, in the Hght 
of other parallel passages, come to see the 
truth alike in reference to this rite of divine 
appointment, and as in apostolic times, there 
will yet be "One Lord, one faith, one bap- 
tism"— not that several different acts were 



88 AUTOBIOGKAFHY OF 

regarded as baptism, but that to Gentiles as 
well as to Jews, one and the same rite was 
applied; and that, as I believe, not a rhantism, 
but a baptism. 

Prior to my baptism, Mr. C. M. Clay had 
returned from Mexico and had requested that 
I send to his care a box of my "Anti-slavery 
Manuals." I had done so. He distributed 
these largely in this part of Madison County. 
Friends of freedom here had united in a re- 
quest that I visit them and preach to them. I 
did so early in the spring of 1853. After I 
had preached to the people some nine sermons, 
thirteen persons came out as professed 
followers of Christ. Most of these had been 
baptized and came from their former slave- 
holding fellowships. The others were bap- 
tized, and all united as a church and for a 
time worshiped in the old Glade meeting 
house. After some days, I left the little flock 
and returned to my home in Lewis County. 

In the new church was a brother who, in 
capacity to speak, was an Apollos. The 
church invited him to preach to them. After 
some months, brethren in the church wrote 
that their pastor was not doing well, and en- 
treated that I come to their help or the church 



JOHN G. FEE. 89 

would be scattered, lost. I saw that if this 
church, planted as it was in the interior of the 
State and avowedly on the principle that 
Christ is no respecter of persons, and is not 
the minister of sin in any form, should now be 
allowed to fail, such failure would be a 
calamity. I said to my wife, For us now to 
leave these churches on the border of the 
State, just at the time when they are spring- 
ing up into a measure of prosperity and 
efficiency, — to sell out our small effects, take 
our little ones and go 140 miles into the in- 
terior and into a place comparatively a wilder- 
ness, without schools, railroads, or even turn- 
pikes, will be a privation, to say the least. But 
I said. My mission is to preach the gospel of 
love in Kentucky. To go to the interior would 
enlarge my sphere of labor, and apparently 
increase my power at home and abroad. I 
said, I have no right to please myself at the 
expense of the interests of Christ's kingdom. 
My wife said, "If you feel that it is duty so to 
do, we will go, and leave the future with 
God." 

Just at this time a Bro. J. S. Davis, a native 
of Virginia, a graduate from Galesburg, 111., 
afterward from the theological school at 



90 AUTOBIOGBAPHY OF 

Oberlin, Ohio, expressed a desire to enter 
into the work in Kentucky. The churches 
on the border accepted his labors, and thus 
the way was made clear for me to go into 
the interior. 

I sent forward an appointment, and then 
took my horse and rode to the interior and 
engaged in preaching for a few days. Mr. C. 
M. Clay had bought a tract of land containing 
some 600 acres; the tract included most of 
the ground on which the village of Berea 
now stands. Mr. Clay was very desirous that 
the church should be sustained, and offered to 
give to me a farm out of the 600 acres if I 
would come and become the settled pastor. I 
never made a bargain with any man or people 
to come for a price, but always decided first 
where duty called and then took what, in the 
providence of God, should come. So I did 
in this case. During the meeting, our mutual 
friend, H. Rawlings, came to me and said: 
"Clay wants you to go and select a farm as a 
home." Though I had decided in my own 
mind I would come, and would need a place 
as a home, yet I said to Rawlings, "I will not 
go and select, for in so doing I may spoil the 
sale of a lot for Mr. Clay; and especially I 



JOHN G. FEE. 91 

will not divert my mind with anything until 
this meeting is over." Rawlings said: "The 
surveyor is here." I said, "Then ^^ou go and 
mark me off a spot." He and Bro. W. B. 
Wright came to the extreme corner of the 
6oo-acre tract and surveyed off for me ten 
acres of land. 

When the meeting had ended, I took my 
horse and rode to the place selected, the 
selection of which I had left to the guidance 
of providence, rather than leave what I then 
thought to be the post of duty. When I came 
to the place I found about one acre of hillside, 
half cleared, and the rest of the land covered 
with a dense undergrow^th of "blackjacks" 
and a frog pond in the midst. A human hab- 
itation could not be seen from the place. I 
got on my horse and rode back to the place 
where Mr. Clay then was and said to him, 
"The lot selected by our friends is a dreary 
spot to which to bring a family, and is more 
than a mile from the place where we propose 
to build a church house." Mr. Clay quickly 
asked, "Is there any other spot to you more 
desirable?" I said, "The Maupin House is 
near to the site for the proposed church 
house, and more desirable." 



92 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

He replied : "I have just sold that to Dave 
Kinnard"; and standing there as he w^as by 
Kinnard's shop, he cried out: "Dave, come 
out here; what will you take for your house 
and lot I sold to you?" 

Kinnard asked, "What do you want it for?" 
Mr. Clay repHed, "For the preacher." Said 
Kinnard, "He may have it." I knew Kin- 
nard was a "trading" man, and whether he 
designed the property as a home or for spec- 
ulation, I knew not. I said to him, "Come 
aside"; and then asked, "Why did you buy 
that piece of property?" He had another 
property alongside of it. He replied, "It is 
my *rosy'. " I saw in a moment that to take 
the house and lot would be to covet my neigh- 
bor's property. I said at once, "I will not 
take it." I rode back to the selected spot. 
There I found the two friends, H. Rawlings 
and W. Stapp, sitting each on an old fallen 
tree. I said, "This is a dreary spot to which 
to bring a family." All was silence for a 
moment. Rawlings, who was not a Chris- 
tian, then broke the silence by quoting the 
familiar couplet: 

"Prisons would palaces prove, 
If Jesus would dwell with me there." 



JOHN G. FEE, 93 

I said to Stanton Thompson, who had that 
moment come up, seeking employment, "Take 
your axe and drive a stake by that little hick- 
ory, and we will build a house there." 

Looking around for a moment I saw, what 
I had not previously noticed, the absence of 
w^ater, and said, "There is no water here for 
man or beast." Silence again for a moment, 
when Rawlings gravely replied, "Moses smote 
the rock and the waters gushed out." I said 
to Thompson, "Dig a well beside that dog- 
wood tree." He did, — found water, — and the 
well has never been dry. 



94 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 



CHAPTER V. 

Removal to Madison County. — Projected College. — Its 
Foundation Principles. — Survey of Fields. — Mob at 
Dripping Springs. — Mob in Rockcastle County. — 
Fourth of July.— C. M. Clay and I differ.— Mob in 
Rockcastle County. — Mob in Madison County. — Dark 
Days at Berea. — Entreaty to Leave. — Decision to 
Hold On.— Trusts. 

I RETURNED to my family then in Lewis 
County. After a short time, I gathered our 
household goods into a two-horse wagon, and 
my wife, two children and I, in a one-horse 
carriage, started for the new home, one hundred 
and forty miles in the interior. There was no 
railroad to Berea at that time. In the evening 
of the third day we camped in the nev^ house, 
then without a chimney, or glass in the win- 
dows, or fence around the yard. Believing, 
as we did, that we were exactly where the 
Lord would have us, we lay down and slept 
calmly, sweetly. 

After a few days, with chimney up, glass 
in the windows, and yard enclosed, we began 
to plan for a school-house, and a place for 
preaching up on the ridge. Lumber was 



JOHN G. FEE. 95 

secured and the eastern part of what is now 
known as the "old District School-house" was 
constructed. 

About this time Bro. George Candee came; 
and whilst he and I were chopping w^ood, 
then piled up in my yard, we talked up the 
idea of a more extended school — a college — 
in which to educate not merely in a knowledge 
of the sciences, so called, but also in the 
principles of love in religion, and liberty and 
justice in government; and thus permeate the 
minds of the youth with these sentiments. 

With a purpose to survey the field and look 
out the best location, we took our horses and 
rode out into Rockcastle County, and visited a 
community in which I had preached a few 
discourses during the preceding year. We 
thought we had there found the place, and 
unfolded our plans to a friend. He entered 
with commendable zeal into the plan and was 
ready to deed lands for the enterprise. 

As a preparatory step we induced friends 
to help in the erection of a house as a place for 
the school, and for public worship. The 
building was speedily enclosed, a few ser- 
mons preached, and Otis B. Waters, a stu- 
dent from Oberlin, Ohio, was introduced as 



96 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

teacher of the school. Soon some enemy of 
the movement reduced the building to ashes. 

Friends there were intimidated and wholly 
unwilling to make any other effort at building. 
I kept up a monthly appointment in the com- 
munity, in groves and private houses. 

Brother Candee went into Pulaski County 
and started a school there. Speedily the 
house there was burned. From thence he 
went to McKee, the county seat of Jackson 
County. I kept headquarters at Berea, .with 
regular appointments there, and in three other 
adjoining counties. 

A Bro. Richardson, a man of excellent 
spirit, came. He went on to WilHamsburg, 
the county seat of Whitley County, where 
Bro. Myers has successfully labored. Bro. 
Richardson there began a school, but soon 
felt the unfriendly embrace of a mob and left. 

One of my appointments for regular preach- 
ing, at this time, was at Dripping Springs, in 
Garrard County, near to Crab Orchard. The 
slave power was, as ever, vigilant — called a 
meeting of citizens at Crab Orchard, and a 
venerable minister of the Gospel (?) presided 
over their deliberations. They gravely re- 
solved that I should not further preach nor 
distribute Abolition documents in that county. 



JOHN G. FEE. 97 

On coming to my next appointment, I 
found, as I had been told I would, a crowd 
not very benignant in looks. I went into the 
house with friendly salutations for all, and 
with quiet purpose to meet faithfully whatever 
providence might reveal. I w^as informed 

that there w^as, in the hands of Dr. , a 

batch of resolutions I would be requested to 
hear. I expressed a readiness to listen. At 
the^ close of the reading the demand was that 
my reply be yes or no. I said, <'I have given 
to you a quiet, respectful hearing, and have a 
right to the same from you"; and without 
pause for them to accumulate wrath replied 
to each resolution — six in number. 

In my reply I said : "I am a citizen, a native 
of the State; my interests are your interests; 
your interests are my interests; and as a serv- 
ant of the living God, and deprecating, as I 
do, the institution of slavery in all its forms, 
I cannot pledge to you that I will not preach 
in this county what I conceive to be the truth 
of God, or refrain from scattering abroad 
tracts and other publications containing senti- 
ments of justice and liberty." A significant 
pause ensued. The crowd sought, through a 
"go-between," to pile up the sad consequences 



98 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

that might follow if I did not then quietly 
withdraw. I replied, "You all know I am not 
a man of violence, — I carry no weapons of 
defense. If any person is hurt, the guilt and 
responsibility will be on those who do the 
'hurting.' " After much counciling and 
hesitancy, one swore he could move me; 
another swore he could — and another--and 
the three clamped me; and with the crowd 
pressing they soon hustled me from the house. 
As they were passing with me out of the yard, 
I laid hold of a bar-post, deciding as I did, in 
my mind, that if they got me away it should 
be a case of "assault and batter3\" This they 
soon made, by breaking my hold. They 
took me to my horse, which they had brought 
from the stable, and asked me to get on. I 
declined, saying: "I can not, with any degree 
of propriety, comply with demands so un- 
reasonable, unjust and illegal." They then 
put me on my horse and asked me to ride; I 
declined. They then led and drove, and thus 
escorted me one or two miles on m}- way 
home. 

I made my appeal, as I had done in similar 
cases before, to the Civil Court. I got no 
redress. When my friend Rawlings enquired 



JOHN G. FEE. 99 

of the foreman of the Grand Jury why they 
did not bring in a true bill against the mob, 
the foreman replied, "The proof was clear, 
but we could not do any thing." 

Other trials, by which to sift friends, and 
indicate the place for the proposed college 
and continued church, seemed to be necessary. 

Soon after the mobbing at Dripping Springs, 
Garrard County, I went again eighteen miles 
distant, to my regular monthly appointment 
in Rockcastle County. My wife taking her 
babe in her arms, leaving our other little 
ones at home with a good friend, went with 
me. When we arrived, we found an orderly 
congregation of people, and larger than we 
had expected, assembled in the grove, accord- 
ing to previous arrangement. 

Soon after I had commenced preaching, a 
band of men, about thirty in number, rode up, 
dismounted and posted themselves outside 
the congregation. Soon it was manifest that 
they were in doubt as to what was the better 
course to pursue. Unobserved by me, and 
without any previous knowledge of his intent, 
there stood behind me a strong, robust man ; 
and, though it was now early summer, he had 
on a large overcoat, with large side pockets. 



100 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

evidently not empty. Under his overcoat, as 
I was afterward informed, there was seen the 
handle of a hup^e knife, evidently not made 
by Wostenholm & Sons. This man (Roberts) 
said not a word, nor moved a step. His 
known sympathy with liberty and free speech, 
bespoke to others his silent purpose. I 
followed the plan of my sermon, concluded, 
and knelt down, with many others, and called 
on a brother to lead in prayer — he was silent. 
I then called on a venerable minister of the 
Gospel, usually fervent in prayer, and he, too, 
remained silent. I prayed, and then, after 
further conversation with some three persons 
who had confessed sorrow for sin and trust 
in Jesus, we w^ent with the congregation to a 
stream of water near by, and there, upon the 
repeated profession of their faith in Christ, I 
baptized the three, in the name of the Father, 
Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Soon after the baptism and before we left 
the ground, my wife, other friends and m3^self, 
vv^ere warned not to return — that if we did, 
we would certainly meet a large force, and I 
not be allowed to speak. I replied, "The 
Lord willing, I will meet my appointment." 
My wife told them that, if living, I would 
come. 



JOHN G. FEE. 101 

In the meantime, I went in person to see 
two civil officers — justices of the peace. 
They were personal friends. Each promised 
to attend the next meeting and demand order 
in the name of the Commonwealth. 

I sought at all times to secure to myself 
and to others protection of person and libert}' 
of speech, by appeal, not to arms, but to civil 
magistrates and to civil courts. This was, as 
I believed, not only wise policy, but religious 
duty. Civil authority is from God. "The 
powers that be are ordained of God." Rom. 
13:1. Parental authority is of God. It may 
be, and often is, abused. So may civil author- 
ity; still it is right to recognize and honor the 
civil authority; thus educate public sentiment 
to a right course, and secure in this way the 
only substantial peace. 

My appeals to the magistrates referred to, 
though they were personally friendly, were 
of no avail. 

Between the meeting referred to and my 
next appointment in Rockcastle County, there 
came a severe crisis in the histor}^ of the work 
at Berea and the region roundabout. 

A short time previous in that year, i8$6, 
Hon. C. M. Clay had proposed a Republican 



102 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

ticket for Kentucky; a convention in which it 
might be adopted and sent forth. In his in- 
troductory speech he said: "The National 
Government has nothing more to do with 
slavery than with concubinage in Turkey." I, 
in reply, said, "The National Government is 
responsible for the strength and perpetuity of 
slavery and tliis by the enactment of the 
Fugitive Slave Law." 

The Fourth of July was near at hand. We 
had previously, on this national birthday, 
celebrated liberty prospectively — Mr. Clay 
leading and I following. 

The place for the celebration had, by pre- 
vious arrangements, been fixed at Slate Lick 
Springs, Madison County. The day came, 
and hundreds of people gathered. Mr. Clay 
and I were on hand, and when the hour for 
addresses came, Mr. Clay said that I must 
speak first. I declined. He insisted. I 
thought I saw his policy — have me utter my 
radical sentiments, and he then review me. 

I decided, in my own mind, to meet the 
issue squarely; and rising with a copy of the 
Declaration of Independence in my hand, I 
repeated the words, " 'AH men are created 
free and equal,' and 'endowed by their Creator 



JOHN G. FEE. 103 

with certain inalienable rights.' " I said, ''If 
inalienable, then such are man's relations to 
God, to himself and family, that he cannot 
alienate; society cannot; governments cannot 
ahenate. ^Endowed by their Creator,' if so, 
then it is impious in us to attempt to take 
away." I added, ''This invasion of human 
rights is condemned by the highest judicial 
authorities"; and I quoted from Blackstone, 
Judge McLean, and others. Then I said, 
"What is stronger than all, the Word of God 
forbids it," and quoted various passages. I 
further said, *'That which thus outrages nat- 
ural right and divine teaching is mere usurpa- 
tion, and, correctly speaking, is incapable of 
legalization." I then showed that under the 
Mansfield decision there was no legal slavery 
in an}^ of the British colonies — that when 
the American colonies became States of 
this Union, they did not attempt to legalize 
slavery — it exists only by usurpation. I then 
concluded by saying, "A law confessedly 
contrary to the law of God ought not by 
human courts to be enforced"; and referred 
to the Fugitive Slave Law, and said that I 
would refuse to obey; then suffer the penalt3^ 
Mr. Clay followed, and after expressions of 



104 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

high personal regard for me, in many respects, 
he said to others, "As my political friends, I 
warn you; Mr. Fee's position is revolutionar}', 
insurrectionary and dangerous." He con- 
tinued by saying, "As long as a law is on the 
statute book, it is to be respected and obeyed 
until repealed by the republican majority." 
He elaborated his position. When he came 
to the Fugitive Slave Law he said, *'So far as 
this is concerned, I would not obey it myself; 
it is contrary to natural right, and I would 
not degrade my nature by obeying it," — 
a manly, noble utterance. I seized the con- 
cession and the opportunity and in my reply 
said, "My friend, Mr. Clay, has conceded the 
whole point at issue — that there is a Higher 
Law." He, now seated in the midst of the 
congregation, cried out, "The Fugitive Slave 
Law is unconstitutional." Yet it was on the 
statute book and unrepealed by the republican 
majority; and to be logically in harmony with 
his previous premises, he would be under 
obligation to enforce and carry it out. There 
was manifest confusion in the crowd. A 
slaveholder standing by W. B. Waight said, 
"Fee has got him." The slaveholder was 
sorry that it was so. I refer to this simply 



JOHN G. FEE. 105 

to show that even slaveholders saw the 
absolute right; but, with many others, were 
unwilling to stand up for the right. 

The provisions in the baskets were spread, 
but eaten without exhilaration. The friends of 
slavery were not pleased, and the friends of 
freedom were divided. Some went away 
saying, "Fee is religiously right; Clay is 
politically right." 

Many whose consciences were in favor of 
freedom, but who had not 3^et counted all but 
loss for Christ in the person of his poor, fell 
back, one by one. 

Mr. Clay himself came not to my house for 
thirteen months; and when the time came for 
me to go back to my next appointment in 
Rockcastle Count}^, not only were the 
magistrates, alluded to previously, secure at 
home, but many others also remained. The 
prospect for a college, a living church, life 
itself, was waning. The "narrow way" still 
existed. 

Soon after the celebration at Slate Lick, 
the time for my next appointment in Rock- 
castle County came. That the now drooping 
spirits of remaining friends might be cheered 
by my personal presence, and that all things 



106 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

might be in readiness for worship on Lord's 
Day, I mounted my horse the day previous, 
and rode out, some eighteen miles, to the 
place appointed for preaching. On my way 
I called at the house of one of the magistrates 
previously referred to. He could not be 
found. I then rode on to the house of the 
man who had been apparently most interested 
in our work. I saw in a moment that he, too, 
was utterly discouraged — no spirit in him — 
afraid to go to the place appointed for preach- 
ing, though on his own premises. He was 
willing to shelter me for the night, — but that 
was all. 

The next morning the heavens themselves 
were overcast with clouds; and about the 
time for the gathering of the people, the rain 
commenced descending. The house pro- 
vided for the expected congregation was 
small and soon filled, almost exclusively with 
women. The arbor, constructed as a shade 
for men, in front of the house, would not 
shield them from the falling rain. They dis- 
persed to neighboring houses. This was the 
opportunity for the mob foretold at the time 
of ihe previous appointment. 

As I was afterward informed, the mob was 



JOHN G. FEE. 107 

at this time lying in ambush, waiting to see if 
Mr. Clay and his personal friends would be 
present. They knew that immediately after 
the mob at Dripping Springs Mr. Claj had 
said, "Free speech shall be maintained, and 
Fee shall be heard"; and strong demonstra- 
tions for the maintenance of such had been 
made ; but these men also knew that since 
that time Mr, Clay, as at the celebration at 
Slate Lick, had expressed disapproval of my 
radical sentiments in regard to the Higher 
Law. They w^ere now waiting to see if 
Mr. Clay's difference of sentiment would 
neutralize his zeal for free speech, and 
cause his absence on this occasion. Find- 
ing him not present, and no armed forces 
ready to defend me, some forty or fifty men 
quickly surrounded the house in which I was 
preaching; and a portion of them, with show 
of previously-concealed weapons, rushed into 
the house, and with violence pulled me out of 
it, tearing my coat, and one man struck me a 
violent blow% but without inflicting lasting 
injury. 

The mob had taken the precaution to have 
my horse in readiness, and demanded that I 
mount and be ready to march. I saw that 



108 AVTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

this, under existing circumstances, was pro- 
bably the best thing to do. 

The leader of the mob said to me, "We 
■will now take you out of this county; and if 
you return again it w^illbe at the peril of your 
life." I calmly replied, *'I am in your hands. 
but I will make no pledges to men, for the 
present or the future." The crowd started 
with me for Crab Orchard, nine miles distant. 

The men having me in charge w-ere not 
silent. Like all others conscious of guilt, 
they sought to justify themselves by criminat- 
ing others. I was neither sullen nor silent. 
I vindicated my right as a native citizen, and 
as a Christian minister, to speak as occasion 
offered, and appealed to their own sense of 
honor and of right. One by one of the 
number dropped out of the crowd. 

We had not proceeded many miles until 
suddenly there descended upon us a drenching 
rain;— like the dew on Nebuchadnezzar: as 
described by Milton, it "dipped us all over." 
By common consent we all took shelter in a 
farm house near to the roadside. The "man 
of the house" had a kind look and a pleasant 
manner. Seeing a large Bible on a small 
table, I said to him, "We can not travel whilst 



JOHN G. FEE. lOi) 

the rain is falling so heavily, and if you are 
wilHng we will read a portion of Scripture 
and pray." He assented pleasantly, and I 
turned to the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, 
and read, "Cry aloud, spare not, Hft up thy 
voice hke a trumpet, * * * Is not this the fast 
that I have chosen? to loose the bands of 
wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and 
to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break 
every yoke? * * Then shalt thou call and the 
Lord shall answer"; — and so to the end of 
that chapter, so full of instruction and precious 
promise. I knelt down and prayed. Soon 
the rain ceased. We all mounted our horses; 
but seven of the number turned back. Nine 
persevered in their purpose to take me out 
of the county, and brought me to Crab 
Orchard, where, much to my comfort, I saw 
no crowd of hostile men waiting to receive 
me, as was expected. 

The mission of the nine to take me out of 
the county was now ended; but feeling that 
they must say something they asked me if I 
would "take something to drink," — they 
meant whisky. 

These men, as their manner indicated, 
doubtless thought they were acting magnani- 

8 



110 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

mously to offer a *'treat" — even to an Aboli- 
tionist. I, in a quiet manner, replied, <'I drink 
nothing stronger than cold water; and if you 
will give me a cup of that I shall be much 
obliged." This they quickly brought to me, 
and after drinking it, I bade them good even- 
ing and started toward my home. 

It was now near sunset. I rode on some 
two or three miles, and coming to the small 
log-house of a poor man, I asked the privilege 
of spending with him the night. This he 
kindly granted. Early the next morning I 
was again on my horse, and in a few minutes 
was in the w^ell known road leading from 
Dripping Springs to Berea. 

During the night a friend, James Waters, 
came across the country, and came to my 
house exactly as the clock was striking twelve. 
My wife recognized his voice and said, "Mr 
Fee is taken"; for all night long she seemed 
to have had an apprehension of my condition. 
Waters, after some minutes of delay, said, 
with a tremulous voice, "He is in the hands 
of a violent mob, and where they have gone 
with him God only knows." 

Our dear Burritt, now gone before us, then 
a boy seven years old, said, "Mother, we can 



JOHN G. FEE. Ill 

all pray for Pa." The mother and children, 
with Miss Tucker, a lady friend from Oberlin, 
Ohio, all knelt down and offered earnest 
prayer. 

Soon, Mrs. W. B. Wright, the wife of our 
nearest neighbor, was at the door of our house, 
and promptly offered to go with my wife in 
search of me ; and by dawn of day, twenty-two 
men were ready to go with the women. 

Waters, who knew the character of the 
men who had seized me, had expressed the 
belief that I would not be found alive. 

In less than three hours the company was 
near to the place where I had been last seen 
in the hands of the mob. Just at this moment 
a friend rode up and informed them that I 
had been seen that morning riding quietly 
toward my home. All quickly retraced their 
steps, and soon found me quite happy with the 
little ones, who had been left in the care of 
Miss Tucker. Thus ended another episode 
in the history of Berea and its work. 

It was now manifest that the place for the 
contemplated college was not in Rockcastle 
County; at least in that part of it. The women 
of true faith in God were few there; and the 
men of courage were still less in number. 



112 AUTOBIOGBAFHY OF 

Providence seemed to say, fall back on Berea; 
and though there were then few in Berea 
with depth of piety, there were others who 
had physical courage, and who believed that 
free speech is right and had determined it 
should be maintained. Thus "the earth helped 
the woman" — for a time. 

Other trials were in reserve, by which to 
test the faith and patience of the church and 
people at Berea. In the years 1857-8 I had 
appointments for preaching at Lewis Chapel 
in this county, in the region known as Big 
Bend of Kentucky River. In this region 
Bro. Robert Jones had also traveled as a 
colporter, selling the publications of the 
American Tract Society, and also distribut- 
ing anti-slavery documents, — tracts written 
by myself and others. 

In the month of February, 1858, I went to 
the house of a Mr, Fields, an excellent man, a 
substantial farmer; and on Friday evening 
preached at his house. 

I had been warned not to come again into 
that region; but my covenant was upon me to 
preach the Gospel of Christ in this my native 
State — a gospel that is not the minister of sin; 
— and there was thus far an open door, and I 



JOHN G. FEE. 113 

felt, as ofttimes before, "woe is me if I preach 
not this Gospel"; and that I had no right to 
"count my life dear unto myself." 

Saturday morning was one of comparative 
comfort for that month of the year. After 
breakfast I retired to an adjacent forest for 
prayer and reflection. On returning to the 
house, Mr. Fields said to me, "Mr. C , ex- 
member of the Legislature, has been here, 
and advises me not to go to the chapel; 'for,^ 
said he, nhere will be trouble there to-day. 

Just at this moment a man rode by, carry- 
ing before him three double-barreled shot- 
guns. "There," said Mr. Fields, "do you see 

that half-Injun? Relives atold C O 'sj 

there is something up." Turning to me and 
looking gravely he said, "Shall we take guns? 
I have one rifle, and my brother has two." I 
rephed, ''No, I carry no weapons but the 
gospel of truth; and then, three rifles will only 
provoke greater violence. If we shall be 
disturbed I will make my appeal to the Civil 
Courts, as I always have done." He assented. 
In due season we took our horses and started 
for the chapel,— the place for preaching. 

When we arrived, Mr. Marsh, a friend, 
who was outside waiting for us, advancing, 



114 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

said, in a very subdued tone, "We shall have 
trouble here to-day." I replied, "Let us do 
our duty, and leave the results with God"; 
and passed on into the house; for when duty 
is clear, it is not wise to counsel with fears. 
Mr. Marsh followed in, and seated himself 
near to the desk w^here I stood. He seemed 
to desire to be near to me. Exactly on time, 
eleven o'clock, w^e commenced the service of 
the morning. I had advanced about half way 
in my sermon, when I noticed restiveness in 
the congregation, and some young men left 
the house. I knew the occasion, for I was so 
situated that I, too, could see the crowcs of 
men, on horseback, with guns on their 
shoulders, riding rapidly toward the chapel. 

In a moment the house was surrounded 
with armed men. I said to the congregation, 
"Sit still"; and I preached on. Soon Mr. 

C came in, and seated himself by Mr. 

Marsh. C commenced whispering to 

Marsh. Marsh shook his head, and C got 

up and retired from the house. I continued 
preaching as though all was right. Soon 
C — ' — came in, and advancing to me said, 
"Mr. Fee, there are men here who want you 
to stop and come out." I said, "Mr. Coving- 



JOHN G. FEE. 115 

ton, I am engaged in a religious duty and in 
the exercise of a constitutional right; please 
sit down and do not interrupt." He turned 
on his heel, and went out. Soon three men 
entered the doorway, with guns in their hands, 
and with horrible oaths cried out, "Stop, G— d 
d_n you, and come out here." I preached on. 
Marsh, Fields, and others—men and women- 
remained, still apparently listening. Soon 
the men referred to rushed forward, and 
seizing me by the collar of my coat, and by 
my arms, dragged me to the door. There a 

stout man, S , stepped up, and pulling a 

new rope from his pocket, swore he would 
"hang me to the first Hmb, if I did not then 
promise to leave the county and never come 
back again." I rephed, "I am in your hands, 
men; you know I would not harm one of you; 
if you harm me, upon you will be the responsi- 
bility." With violence they pulled me out 
into the highway,— the county road. 

The captain of the company, coming up, 
said, "I am captain of this company; leave him 
in my hands.': They surrendered. The cap- 
tain led me aside, and with the concurring 

entreaty of Mr.C , advised me to promise 

these men that I would leave the county and 



116 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

not come back again ; assuring me if I would 
do so they would not hurt me. I replied, "1 
am not hasty in this my purpose to preach 
this gospel of impartial love, and bear my 
testimony against this great perversion of it, 
human slavery. I cannot pledge myself to 
leave where I believe duty calls." 

They then brought my horse and demanded 
that I mount. I did so. They then went 
back into the chapel and brought out Bro. 
Jones; and the captain of the company took 
him behind him on his horse, and they started 
with us for Kentucky River, distant, perhaps, 
two miles, swearing they would duck me as 
long as life was in me. The ducking I 
dreaded, for the weather was cool, — in Feb- 
ruary — the river at full tide, and I not an 
expert swimmer. Soon after starting, the 
captain, addressing himself to me, commenced 
talking obscenely. I turned to him and asked 
if he had a mother. He replied, "Yes." I 
then asked, "Have you a wife?" He again 
rephed, "Yes." I said, "I hope, out of respect 
to your mother and your wife, if not to others, 
you will speak as a son and husband ought 
to." He was silent for a time. Slavery was 
a corrupt tree, and bore corrupt fruit, — made 



JOHN G. FEE. Ill 

many of those who consented to it, not only 
lawless, but lecherous and vile. Faithful men 
and women needed to cry out against it. 

When the crowd had advanced about half 
the distance to the river, the captain called a 
halt, and again demanded that I promise to 
leave the county and not return again; and 
added, "You have said that the men engaged 
in mobs are generally poor and irresponsible 
men; but we will have you understand that 
the men in this crowd are men of propert}' 
and standing." I repHed, "So much the 
greater peril to society, when men of property 
and standing will consent to disregard law and 
order." I again said, "I can make no pledges 
to leave." They then started again for the 
river. 

I had been in the hands of several organized 
mobs before. I had been in the midst of in- 
furiated crowds not organized, who seemed 
ready to rush upon me, but were in some way 
hindered. I had been often waylaid and sud- 
denly assaulted. I had been stoned on the 
highway; but this was the most formidable of 
all, and, apparently, "meant business." The 
mob took us near to the bank of the river. 
There the leaders left me in the care of others. 



118 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

and turned off to counsel with men who were 
for some reason already on the ground. 

The men left to guard me were maniiestly 
poor men, with some young men. These 
seemed to enter into sympathy with me, and 
in an undertone one said to me, "Just promise 
these men to leave, and they will not hurt 
you." I repHed, "It is not fitting that I, a 
native citizen, pledge to these men that I leave 
my home and the work to which I believe 
God has called me." I said, "You cannot see 
my motives now; you will at the Judgment 
Day." By this time the leaders had returned, 
and men were around me in circles three deep, 
and heard these last words. One cried out, 
"We did not come here to hear a sermon, let 
us do our work." They then took Bro. 
Jones and myself nearer to the bank of the 
river and ordered Bro. Jones to strip himself. 
He took off his coat. The captain cried out, 
"Take off your jacket." He did so. "Now 
your shirt — strip to the red." Jones hesitated. 
The captain stripped him to the bare back, 
bent the man down, and with three sycamore 
rods, heavy and thick, struck the unoffending 
man many severe blows, leaving the marks 
on his body as distinct as the fingers on a 



JOHN G. FEE. 119 

man's hand. The suffering man groaned and 
fell forward. 

The captain then turned to me, and, with 
an oath, said, *'I will give you five hundred 
times as much if you do not promise to leave 
this county and not come back again." I said 
to him, "I will take my suffering first," and 
knelt dow^n. One of the crowd, whom I then 
knew not — who "held the clothes" — now an 
official in the county, and a very estimable 
citizen, cried out, "Don't strike him." Then 

another cried out, "Don't strike him." O 

said, "I feel that I ought to, but don't like to 
go against my party; — get up and go home." 

I got on my horse, and took Bro. Jones be- 
hind me, for he was so disabled by the whip- 
ing that he could not walk. 

The retreat of these men of "property and 
standing," from their work at the Big Bend of 
Kentucky River, was ludicrously orderly. 
The captain ordered all to march away in 
double file. The column was quite long and 
imposing. Bro. Jones and I, two unarmed 
men on one horse, in the middle, the men of 
"property" in front, and the men of "standing" 
in the rear. 

The procession marched in this manner for 



120 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

some two or three miles. On coming to Cov- 
ington's factory, the command was given, 
"Right about, wheel." This was meant for 
those who had enHsted for the previously de- 
scribed ^'service." Bro. Jones and I had not 
thus enHsted; hence we kept the straightfor- 
ward road, as all then desired us to do. 

After a ride of one or two miles, we came 
to a forest. There we dismounted and read 
the fourth chapter of the Book of Acts, and 
had a season of prayer. We then again 
mounted the one horse, and rode on quite a 
number of miles to the house of a relative of 
Bro. Jones. There we stopped for the night. 

After supper we had a season of worship. 
I felt led to speak at length, — stood up and 
did so. At the end of the discourse the head 
of the family and his wife came forward, and 
professed faith in Christ Jesus as their 
Saviour. That night was one of very great 
peace and joy to me. I had quiet communion 
and fellowship with Christ Jesus, my Lord. 

In the morning Bro. Jones was not able to 
travel. That portion of his body — his back — 
which had been bruised by the whipping w^as 
purple because of the bruising and stagnated 
blood. I left him, only sorrowing that I had 



JOHN G. FEE. 121 

not shared some of his suffering, and thus 
been brought more fully into sympathy with 
our once suffering Lord and his then suffering 
poor. Of this experience I was conscious. 

Alone I started for my home, some ten or 
twelve miles distant. Terror had spread its 
pall over all the country. No glad faces 
greeted, until I came to my little home. Wife 
and children were glad to see me, — wife not 
apparently surprised nor dismayed. Violent 
persecution was to both of us no new thing; 
it had been of frequent occurrence during the 
past twelve years. 

I had anticipated something of this, when, 
fifteen years previousl};, I had entered into 
covenant with God to preach in this, my 
native State, this gospel of love, of justice, of 
liberty. I had then counted the cost, and did 
not then, nor in the hands of any mob, have to 
decide what to do. 

In these trials my wife was more cheery 
than I. This cheered life's pathway. I did 
not habitually rejoice as it was my privilege 
and duty to do. (See Matt. 5: 12.) 

We remained at our home in great quietude 
for two days. I then took my horse and rode 
to Richmond, the county seat, and engaged 



122 AUTOBIOGBAPH/ OF 

the services of two lawyers to aid Bro. Jones 
in the prosecution of the leaders of the mob. 
1 chose to make the prosecution in his behalf 
rather than in my own. He w^as regarded as 
a Repubhcan, and I as a "Radical." I also 
thought that in this way I woulu secure Mr. 
Clay's co-operation, and addressed a letter to 
him, requesting his aid in behalf of Bro. Jones. 
He declmed, saying, "To do so would be only 
'robbing Peter to pay Paul,' " and then ad- 
vised me to leave the county. He kindly 
offered to take care of my family and 
property. 

I returned home. Speedily large numbers 
of the mob came to Richmond, and, as I was 
informed, swore they would give five hundred 
lashes to the lawyer who would dare to 
defend Fee or Jones. As a matter of fact, no 
prosecution was made. The Circuit Judge, 
a kind man, afterward a Republican, witnessed 
the bravado of the threatening mob; the 
Grand Jury took no notice of the occurrence; 
the civil arm was paralyzed by the slave 
power. 

A crisis came to Berea. For weeks there 
was a reign of terror. The male members of 
the church, with others who were friends, 



JOHN G. FEE. 123 

held three formal councils, to which I was in- 
vited. These men entreated that I leave; 
saying, "There is an overwhelming feeling 
against you; your friends cannot protect you; 
the mob will kill you and destroy your prop- 
erty." I replied, "I came here to do my 
duty, and when the mob shall come they will 
find me at my post." 

For weeks, not a man came through our 
little rustic gate, save Otis B. Waters, the 
teacher, and "Ham" Rawlings, the tried friend 
oft referred to. He would come "every few 
days," and on leaving, would say, "Quist 
(Christ) was a Wadical (Radical)," and drop 
large tears of affection over our little children 
as he was bidding them "good-by." 

These were dark days, — days in which we 
could walk only by faith, not by sight, — 
taught to "endure as seeing Him who is in- 
visible." 

I kept up appointments for preaching in the 
school-house. For a time the congregation 
was composed of women, save one or two 
male members. Some men who were friends 
stood around in the forest, some with guns 
near by. 

After a time fears subsided, a few men 



124 AUTOBWGKAFHV OF 

came in, some souls were converted, the little 
school went on until the close of the term. 
Then Bro. Waters returned to Oberlin, Ohio, 
to further prosecute his studies in preparation 
for the Gospel ministr}^ 

It was notoriously true that sudden des- 
truction came upon the leaders of these latter 
mobs, as had been true in Lewis, Mason and 
Bracken Counties. Here in Madison County, 
one of the violent men in the mob was stabbed 
six times and fell dead; another was shot in 
his yard: another shot whilst sitting in his 
house; another stabbed, and after lingering 
some days died. 

So of the Dripping Spring mob: — two of 
the leading violent men were shot; a third 
cut to pieces with a bowie-knife. So in the 
Rockcastle mob the destruction came speedily 
and numerous. Men of that reckless class 
faintly saw a providence, and among them- 
selves banded around the saying, "Old Master 
is against us." 



JOHN G. FEE. 125 



CHAPTER VI. 



Coming of J. A. R. Rogers.— Visit of C. M. Clay.— His 
Expediencies. — The first Commencement. — Adoption 
of a Constitution. — Caste. — Sectarianism. — Decision 
to Raise Funds. — Visit to the Imprisoned Mother. — 
Address in Plymouth Church. — Excitement in 
Madison County. — Expulsion of Teachers and 
Friends at Berea. — Excitement in Bracken County. — 
Wife Returns to Berea. — Our Sojourn in Ohio. — Death 
and Burial of our Son Tappan. — Visit to Berea. 

Early in the year 1858 Bro. J. A. R. 
Rogers, a graduate from Oberlin Institute, 
literary and theological, came to Berea. He 
was an earnest Christian worker. He saw 
something of the future power of the proposed 
school. He entered at once into this, and by 
his efficiency and enthusiasm brought it into 
high repute. Pupils flocked in from Madison 
and adjacent counties. 

The closing exhibition of the school, under 
the supervision of Bro. Rogers, was at hand. 
On the day preceding this exhibition, Cassius 
M, Clay had an appointment to deliver an ad- 
dress to the people of Berea and vicinity. He 

9 



126 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

had not been at Berea since our difference of 
opinion at Slate Lick, July 4, 1856. Not many 
persons were present, and in the defense of his 
conservative position he was without his 
former enthusiasm. After the address he 
walked with me into the woodland, then be- 
fore my door, and as we sat down on a log, 
he remarked, "Fee, things look better than I 
thought they would. I am in heart as much a 
higher law man as you are, and if we were in 
Massachusetts we could carry it out; but here 
we cannot." I replied, "The utterance of 
moral truth should not be confined to geograph- 
ical limits, especial]}^ in a national canvass." 

The reader will allow me to here say, that, 
in my judgment, this notion of expediency in 
the non-utterance of moral truth, lest it should 
seem to hinder success, as exhibited in this re- 
mark of Mr. Clay's, was the great mistake of 
his life, and that it took from him that moral 
power that was necessary for success, and did 
more at that time to hinder his advancement 
to the highest position which the people of 
this nation could give, than any other cause. 

Take as another illustration of his expedien- 
cies — his going to the war with Mexico. At 
the time of his enlistment he was editing the 



JOHN G. FEE. 127 

True American, published then in Lexington, 
Ky. His exposition of the evils of slavery 
was just; his style vigorous; and his courage 
admired by all lovers of liberty. No star in 
the horizon of the American people was rising 
so rapidly. In his manly journal he had de- 
nounced the aggression upon Mexico as a 
scheme for the extension of American slavery; 
and yet, whilst editing the most effective 
journal in the nation, and enrapturing crowded 
audiences by his lectures on the "social and 
political evils of slavery," he volunteered to go 
into that war, waged for the wicked intent — 
"the extension of slavery." He went; was 
captured, imprisoned, returned. He expected 
an ovation. Such as he had hoped for he did 
not receive. 

He said to me, "Fee, I expected by going 
to Mexico to convince the South that I was 
not their enemy, but the enemy of slavery; 
but they gave me no thanks for it." However 
wise he may have thought his enlistment was, 
the nation saw that it was "doing evil that 
good might come." 

This apprehension of the people threw him 
out of line with the moral element that was 
then moving the nation to the overthrow of 



128 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

slavery — to victory in the line, not of expedi- 
encies, but of absolute right. 

It is sometimes true that a man must "stand 
still and see the salvation of God" — commit 
himself to that only v^hich God can use, the 
absolute right, and then work and wait until 
God can vindicate the right. Then the man 
will have the confidence of righteous men, — 
the only men God can use as the true builders 
of His work. Then will he have that conscious 
unity with God that gives quiet, true courage 
and endurance; then, too, he will be kept 
from drifting into other departures from God 
and right — his ''seed," his holy purpose to be 
one with God and the right, "remaineth in 
him" to keep him. 

The narrative concerning Saul was written 
for our admonition and instruction. He had 
at one time a commanding position. God, 
through his prophet, told Saul, as God's min- 
ister and the executive of the nation, to go 
and "hew down the Amalekites, — men, 
women and children; ox and sheep." Saul 
spared Agag and the best of the sheep and 
oxen for sacrifice — an attempt to atone for 
neglect of absolute obedience by a large 
sacrifice. God said, "To obey is better than 



JOHN O. FEE. 129 

sacrifice; and to hearken, than the fat of 
rams." He took His Spirit and the kingdom 
from Saul. 

Other departures from God and right 
marked the after career of Saul. So of my 
friend C. M. Clay; and there will not be safety 
to any man except as he is anchored fully 
in God. 

We would not have made this personal 
allusion but for the fact that the struggle with 
Mr. Clay and his views of expediency were a 
part, and the severest part, of the history of 
Berea and its work. Also, w^e believe that 
readers, especially the youth, ought to have 
the benefit of our observations, experiences 
and suggestions. History should have its 
lessons. 

Mr. Clay at this time was the most con- 
spicuous character in the history of Berea. 
His known opposition to us was a power 
more potent and depressing than all the mobs 
in the State. His position seemed wise to 
many, whilst that of the mobs was at all times 
simply brutish and cowardly. Also, at that 
time, Mr. Clay had a national reputation for 
courage, patriotism, philanthropy, and a high 
social position. With all this he was as strong 



130 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

in condemning my position as he had been 
previously free in commending. He took 
pains to publish to the world that he had 
"denounced Mr, Fee's position," (though he 
had substantially conceded it at the Slate Lick 
celebration, and had confessed that he was 
with me "in heart,") and that my position was 
"insurrectionar}^ revolutionary and danger- 
ous"; though I had been careful to say, "I 
make no rebellion, or armed resistance — only 
exercise my province as a minister for God to 
utter moral truth — that human slavery is 
contrary to riatural right, and, as such, statutes 
enforcing it are without the elements of true 
law, exist by mere usurpation, and are con- 
fessedly contrary to the law of God, and as 
such ought not b}^ human courts to be 
enforced." 

Mr. Clay did not intend to misrepresent, 
but only to state his opinion of what would be 
the tendency of my utterances. This opinion 
of his was, at that time, a great weight— a 
weight to be endured, until God, by His 
providence, should "break every yoke, and let 
the oppressed go free." This He did, and 
then everybody said, Amen. 

Also, Mr. Clay's objection to the co-educa- 



JOHN G. FEE. 131 

tion of the "races" — the impartial feature of 
the school and church at Berea — was well 
known. He did not believe such a school 
could be a numerical or a financial success. 
Also he feared evil results to virtue. We had 
then no sufficient precedent to guide, and no 
theory to maintain, save that it is always safe 
to do right — follow Christ; and we knew He 
would not turn away anyone who came seek- 
ing knowledge, even if "carved in ebony." 
We knew that whilst He is a respecter of 
character, he is not of persons. As His 
followers, there was to us but the one course 
to pursue — open the school to all of virtuous 
habits. Also we believed that the best way 
to inspire woman, colored or w^hite, with 
virtuous sentiments, and establish in her habits 
of purity, was not to treat her invidiously — 
shut her up in pens, schools, by herself, but 
treat her Hke other women of respectability 
and thus inspire her with hope and noble 
resolve, and Hft her above the seductive in- 
fluences of a vicious life. In other words, 
practice the Golden Rule — "do unto all as 
you w^ould they should do unto you." 

The wisdom of following this rule has been 
verified in the historv of the 'school and 



132 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

church at Berea, and we have occasion to 
know that Mr. Clay greatly rejoices in this 
fact. Mr. Clay thought that he was pursuing 
the wisest course, but he was misled, as many 
are now, by his notions of expediency. 

There were other facts of interest connected 
with the closing exercises of the first term of 
the school in 1858, indicating a change of 
public sentiment, and strong sympathy with 
the school, and kind regard for those con- 
ducting it. 

In the grove in front of the school-room a 
large and beautiful bower had been prepared, 
and hand-bills posted, announcing the order of 
exercises for the forenoon, and the speakers 
for the afternoon. The sun on the 24th day 
of June, unveiled by a single cloud, rose upon 
us in great beauty and glory. All around 
was quiet and lovely. Nature was arrayed in 
her most beautiful dress. At an early hour 
the people came from this and adjoining 
counties to witness the exhibition. At the 
appointed hour the exercises were opened by 
singing from well-trained voices, and by 
prayer to Almighty God for his guidance 
and blessing. 

The valedictory, the closing address of the 



JOHN G. FEE. 133 

school, was delivered by a young man, bright 
in intellect, amiable in spirit, and upright in 
conduct; the son of a man who was first in 
the formation of the church at Berea, and in 
every good work. That only and loved son 
fell on the battlefield at Bellmon% Mo. In his 
allusion to teachers and fellow-students, he 
was completely overcome with emotion, and 
many in the audience were moved to tears. 

An excellent dinner had been prepared and 
spread on long tables in the grove. All were 
invited to partake. Among those who par- 
took w^ere men who had been engaged in 
former mobs. Without any ostentation they 
were kindly treated, and they seemed to 
appreciate the kindness. 

Dr. Chase, a native of New Hampshire, and a 
relative of S. P. Chase, once Secretary of U. S. 
Treasury, was there. He was then a practicing 
physician in this county, and was announced 
as the first speaker. As he came upon the 
platform, a portly and venerable-looking man 
from an adjoining county, and an ex-member 
of the State legislature, arose in the audience 
and cried out, "Dr. Chase, I want to speak, 
and to speak now; for I cannot tarr}^ until 
your exercises are all through." Dr. Chase 



134 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

gave place. The ex-legislator, then the 
owner of quite a number of slaves, came on 
to the platform, and began by saying, "When 
I came up here with my friend Mason," 
(another slaveholder and then a citizen of 
this county,) "I expected to see a little handful 
in the bresh," (brush,) "but when I saw this 
large assembly, orderly, and listening with 
marked attention and interest, and when I 
saw the marked progress of these pupils, and 
the manifest sympathy between teachers and 
pupils, my heart was touched. I thought of 
the days when I was a teacher of youth in 
Virginia." 

Turning to parents, he said, "Teach your 
children to make their bread by the sweat of 
their brow; give them education, and teach 
them virtue and morality; and the best of all 
rules is, ^Whatsoever ye would that men 
should do unto you, do ye even so to them.' " 
To such utterances, on such an occasion, we 
were not averse. The rest of his short 
address was pertinent and good. 

He stepped from the platform, and walking 
to the outskirts of the crowd, he met an old 
acquaintance, then a patron of the school, and 
taking him b}' the hand said, "Jimmy, I be- 



JOHN G. FEE. 135 

lieve in my soul the 'niggers' will be free yet; 
but, d — n it, I mean to hold on to mine as long 
as I can." He did; but in 1S64, Uncle Sam 
came along and gave them all a blue coat. 

After this unexpected episode in the closing 
exercises of the school, Dr. Chase and others 
made addresses, and the large and orderl}- as- 
sembl}^ dispersed, evidently deeply impressed 
in favor of Christian education — slavery or no 
slavery. The outlook, on that day, was good 
for Berea. 

Hundreds now continue to express their 
surprise at the interest manifested by the 
people at the commencement exercises of 
Berea College. Usually from three to five 
thousand people attend. Two-thirds of these 
are white. The large tabernacle, which seats 
some two thousand people, will not seat more 
than half the people who come. Good order 
generally prevails. The delivery on the 
platform of essays and orations from colored 
and white students, male and female, is an 
educational force to the thousands who attend. 

In all these efforts there was a continuous 
purpose to establish in interior Kentucky a 
college for the education of the youth of the 
land. Adverse circumstances had all the 



136 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

while been threatening to thwart any such 
effort. These, however, only served to make 
more apparent the necessity of such an 
educational agency, and to make strong the 
purpose of its original projectors. 

Now that possibly the severest effort to in- 
timidate had passed by, and the reaction in 
favor of liberty and education was manifest, it 
was deemed wise to make an advance move- 
ment. Accordingly^, as shown in the minutes 
of the conventions that devised ways and 
means to the end, on Sept. 7, 1858, John G. 
Fee, J. A. R. Rogers, John G. Hanson, John 
Smith, Wm. Stapp, and John Burnham, Sr., 
met at the study of John G. Fee, and after 
prayer and consultation appointed J. A. R. 
Rogers, John Smith and Wm. Stapp a com- 
mittee to draft Preamble and Constitution, to 
be considered at next meeting, which meeting 
was held Dec. i, 1858. At this meeting the 
proposed Constitution w^as considered, and 
after some modification adopted. Other 
meetings w^ere held, a board of trustees was 
appointed, and officers were elected as follows : 
John G. Fee, president; J. A. R. Rogers, 
vice-president; John G. Hanson, secretary; 
T. E. Renfro, treasurer. 



JOHN G. FEE. 137 

Other meetings of the board followed, addi- 
tional trustees were added, and on July 14, 
1859, the Constitution was reaffirmed and by- 
laws adopted. It was the firm belief of the 
projectors of this college that an institution 
designed for the education of youth should 
not merely teach the classics and so-called 
natural sciences, but also moral science — the 
religion of the Bible, that puts man in 
harmony with God and His laws in reference 
to the government of man — that science that 
teaches that God is the source of all true law, 
that men are only legislators, that is, law 
bnngers, as the word imports; and that man, 
universal man, is entitled to the full benefit of 
these laws. 

It was to be expected that a Constitution with 
by-laws for the government of such an institu- 
tion, would be in harmony with such senti- 
ments. The first by-law declared, "The 
object of this college shall be to furnish the 
facilities for thorough education to all persons 
of good moral character." The second by- 
law was more specific, and is as follows* 
"This college shall be under an influence 
strictly Christian, and as such, opposed to 
sectarianism, slave-holding, caste, and every 



138 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

other wrong institution or practice." Opposi- 
tion to caste meant the co-education of the 
^ (so-called) "races." This has been the con- 
tinued practice of the college. 

There were some of the friends of liberty 
who could assent to the general principles of 
justice and love, who thought it not expedient 
to make a literal, specific application of them; 
that whilst the rule, "do unto men as you 
would that they should do unto you," was a 
good rule in general, it was not expedient to 
practice upon it in the co-education of the 
races. 

Among these was our friend, C. M. Clay. 
He declined to act as a trustee. Soon two, 
and then after a time a third one of those who 
first agreed to be trustees, dropped out. 
Thus the caste issue sifted the very board of 
trustees themselves. 

There were many others who were opposed 
to slavery and desired the entire liberty of 
the negro, yet were unprepared to give to 
him that position which merit required, and 
which is a great incentive to noble and 
virtuous conduct. Such Christ-like treatment 
would tend to the harmony of society, the 
soHdification of the social forces of the nation, 



JOHN G. FEE. 139 

and present a proper exhibition of the Gospel 
of Christ, who is Himself no respecter of 
persons. (He is of character — not of 
persoLs.) The incorporation of the principle 
of impartial conduct to all, in institutions for 
the public good, was to the founders of Berea 
College the only course at once Christian, 
patriotic, and philanthropic. This now incor- 
porated feature of the college made the 
school, and community in which it was 
nestled, still more odious to an unregenerate 
pubhc sentiment; and as we shall hereafter 
notice, subjected us to still greater outrages. 
Another hindrance to reform and progress 
was sectarianism. The founders of the col- 
lege saw that in every community where they 
raised their voices against slaver}^ caste, se- 
cretism, rum-selling, any popular vice, imme- 
diately members of the sects would be found 
shrinking from the proclamation of truth and 
the utterance of their own convictions, lest by 
so.doing they should peril the safety of their 
sects, or denominations. With the semblance 
of piety they would say, "Peace is best," and 
thus smother truth. The founders also saw 
that everywhere the shelves of libraries and 
book-stores were bending beneath the vol- 



140 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

umes written on theological dogmas, whilst 
*'truth [practical truth] was fallen in the 
streets, an-^^ equity could not enter." Ministers 
were spending their energies in zealous de- 
bates and fervid, eloquent pleadings over the 
shibboleths of party, whilst the slave was 
groaning in his bondage, and the masters were 
deluded with false hopes and a perverted 
Bible. 

The founders of Berea College not only 
felt that the fountains of all good, of true re- 
ligion, should be opened, but that the great 
barrier, sectarianism, should be removed. 
They also saw that no influence is so potent 
for the removal of error and the establish- 
ment of truth, as that of chartered institutions, 
having the prestige of men of learning and 
piety. They resolved *'that Berea College 
should be under an influence strictly Chris- 
tian, and, as such, opposed to sectarianism, 
slave-holding, caste, and every other wrong 
institution and practice." In declaring that 
the institution should be opposed to sectarian- 
ism, the trustees, as explained in the minutes 
of the meeting that adopted the Constitution 
and by-laws, were careful and explicit; say- 
ing, "In the election of president, professors, 



JOHN G. FEE. Ul 

or teachers, no sectarian test shall be applied, 
but it shall be required that the candidate be 
competent to fill the ofRce, and have a Chris- 
tian experience with a righteous practice." 

The trustees further added, "To be anti- 
sectarian is to oppose everything that causes 
schism in the body of Christ, or among those 
who are Christians, — those who have a Chris- 
tian experience with a righteous practice"; so 
that it is requisite that a president, professor, 
or teacher of Berea College be not merely 
negative on this issue, — simply not sectarian, 
but positive, — that he shall oppose sectarian- 
ism as he would slave-holding, caste, rum- 
selling, or any other "wrong practice." 

To help in the removal of the sin of schism 
is one of the missions of Berea College, and no 
person as "president, professor or teacher," is 
faithful to the spirit or letter of the Constitu- 
tion of the college who adopts or defends 
sectarianism, — yea, does not oppose and seek 
to correct the "evil practice." The interests 
of society and the kingdom of Christ require 
this. 

The Constitution and by-laws of Berea Col- 
lege having been adopted, the trustees de- 
cided to raise funds and erect buildings for 

lo 



142 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

school purposes as speedily as possible. With 
the consent of the trustees, the prudential 
committee, composed of J. G. Fee, J. A. R. 
Rogers, J. G. Hanson, and Thomas Renfro, 
decided that, making themselves personally 
responsible, they would contract for 117 acres 
of land, including the present site of Berea 
College, and that on which part of the village 
of Berea now stands. Soon after the informa- 
tion of this purchase I went to Worcester, 
Mass., to attend the annual meeting of the 
American Missionary Association. The Asso- 
ciation was at that time undenominational, and 
not doing avowedly the work of any one 
denomination, as it now is doing. 

I decided that on my way to Worcester, 
Mass., I would take my family to visit Julett 
Miles, the imprisoned mother, yet in the 
State's prison at Frankfort, Ky., as narrated 
in chapter third. 

We arrived at Frankfort on Saturday after- 
noon. We went to the prison and saw the 
keeper, Mr. South. We inquired for "Julett," 
the colored woman sent there from Bracken 
County for attempting to get her children 
into freedom. "Yes," said he, "she is at my 
house. I took her out of prison to help my 



JOHN G. FEE. 143 

daughter. I thought she looked like a Chris- 
tian woman." The reader will note the fact 
that men and women were deemed valuable in 
proportion as they had Christ in them, — in 
proportion as they were temples of the Holy 
Spirit, — they were the more trustworthy. 
The keeper of the prison having assured us 
that we should see the woman at the prison 
the next morning, we then repaired to our 
hotel. 

That night, leaving my wife with the three 
smaller children at the hotel, I took Laura, 
my daughter, then fourteen years old, and 
went to the colored Baptist church, and lis- 
tened to a very effective sermon delivered by 
a portly, fine-looking colored man, whose 
name was Monroe. I was present in the 
early part of the services. I heard the earn- 
est prayers, the familiar songs, the low, 
plaintive symphonies of the women, — of moth- 
ers whose bosoms had been the seats of sor- 
rows. I had heard these lowwailings before; 
but a series of experiences, and my situation 
at that time, all conspired to bring me more 
fully into sympathy with the sorrowing. I sat 
and quietly wept — wept with continuous weep- 
ing. I was in deep sympathy with burdened 



144 AUTOBIOGEAFHY OF 

spirits. x\t the close of the service I went for- 
ward and shook hands with the preacher, and 
told him I had been greatly benefited by the 
service. Laura and I returned to the hotel. 
The next morning, about lo o'clock, we all, as 
a family, went to the prison. "Julett" was there. 
She was overjoyed at seeing my children. She 
had always manifested much affection for 
them. We were privileged to sit down and 
have a very free and extended conversation 
w^ith her about her nine children, their un- 
known destiny, and her own future. 

We then inquired of the keeper for Calvin 
Fairbanks, a white man, who was then in the 
prison under sentence for aiding away slaves. 
We were told that he was in his cell, — "not 
well." My wife heard the whisper from some 
one of the employes that he had been whipped 
and kept in his cell for not completing his 
task of work the day before. Fairbanks, who 
usually led the worship in the chapel, not 
being present, I was requested to conduct the 
worship. I did so, and preached to the 
assembled convicts. I had this observation 
whilst there : that Fairbanks was the leader 
of worship, and Julett Miles the house maid. 
The Negro stealers were, by the keeper him- 



JOHN G. FEE. 145 

self, adjudged as having the highest measure 
of piety, and therefore given the posts of 
trust. 

The next morning we were privileged to 
see Fairbanks for a short time. Calvin Fair- 
banks was a native of the State of New York. 
He had been sentenced to twenty years im- 
prisonment for aiding slaves to escape. He 
remained in prison twelve years. During the 
war, in the absence of the Governor, he was 
pardoned by the Lieutenant-Governor. He 
is now living in his native State, honored and 
loved. 

After seeing Fairbanks we had another in- 
terview with "Julett." I had procured for her 
a pair of spectacles and a New Testament, 
with large type. Giving these to her, we 
bade her farewell for all time. 

Not long after this she died, — disease said 
to have been of the heart. Thousands of 
slave-mothers have died with broken hearts, 
whilst political parties catered to the slave- 
master, and professing Christians heeded not 
the wailings of the bereaved. Is poor, de- 
praved humanity any better now? Are not 
political parties as servile before the Rum 
Power, as they were fifty years ago before 



146 AUTOBlOGRAPHy OF 

the Slave Power? Are not the many pro- 
fessing Christians as indifferent to the weep- 
ings of the Rachels, who refuse to be com- 
forted because their children and husbands 
are not? 

My wife and three of our children returnea 
to our home in Madison County. I took 
Laura, our eldest child, and went on to Wor- 
cester, Pvlass., to attend an annual meeting of 
the American Missionary Association. 

Immediately after the meeting of the 
Association, I commenced the work of solicit- 
ing funds with which to procure lands and 
erect buildings for Berea College. A few 
subscriptions were secured at Worcester. 

At the suggestion of Lewis Tappan, a 
request came to me from Henry Ward 
Beecher, pastor of the Plymouth Church, 
Brooklyn, N. Y., to come to that church and 
present the claims of Berea College. This 
was at the time of the John Browm raid in 
Western Virginia. The country was in a 
state of intense excitement. 

In my address before the church I said, 
"We want more John Browns; not in manner 
of action, but in spirit of consecration; not to 
go with carnal weapons, but with spiritual; 



JOHN G. FEE. 147 

men who, with Bibles in their hands, and tears 
in their eyes, will beseech men to be recon- 
ciled to God. Give us such men," I said, 
"and we may yet save the South." My 
words were carefully reported and pubHshed 
in the N. Y. Tribune. The Louisville 
Courier, then conducted by Geo. D. Prentiss, 
garbled my words and misrepresented my 
real attitude by saying, *'John G. Fee is in 
Beecher's church, calling for more John 
Browns." 

These words were copied by the Lexington 
Observer, published in Lexington, Ky., and 
by the Mountain Democrat, published in 
Richmond, Ky. To this first misrepresenta- 
tion was added a straight-out falsehood — that 
"at Cogar's landing was found a box of 
Sharp's rifles directed to John G. Fee." 
These falsehoods, added to the consciousness 
that men were sleeping over a magazine, the 
outraged feelings of thousands, were enough 
to alarm the slave power. Speedily were 
gathered into Richmond, the county seat of 
this county, seven hundred and fifty men — so 
reported at the time. These pledged them- 
selves to the removal of John G. Fee, J. A. R. 
Rogers, and their co-laborers, "peaceably if 



148 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

they could, forcibly if they must." A committee 
of sixty-five, composed of the "wealthiest" 
and "most respectable" citizens of the county, 
was commissioned to visit Berea and deliver 
the demand of those w^ho had decided to take 
i^to their control the liberty of white men, as 
well as that of black men. 

I had not yet returned from my trip east- 
ward. The committee, on the 23rd day of 
Dec, 1859, proceeded to the house of Bro. 
Rogers, then principal of the school. The 
leader of the clan delivered to Bro. Rogers a 
document, demanding in the name of the com- 
mittee, that he should leave the State within 
ten days. He attempted to reason with the 
committee, setting forth his claims as a law- 
abiding citizen, to the undisturbed exercise of 
his rights. The committee turned abruptly 
away, and dehvered a like demand to ten 
other famihes, most of whom were native 
Kentuckians. These thus warned to leave 
the State, and others interested in the work 
of building up the school and church, met to- 
gether for prayer and deliberation. 

These friends decided at once to make 
their appeal to the Governor of the State, for 
protection. This they did, in the form of a 



JOHN O. FEE. 149 

short address, borne by two of their number 
to the Governor, setting forth their obedience 
to law, and their devotion to the highest in- 
terests of society, and as such asked for pro- 
tection. The Governor repHed that the 
pubHc mind was deeply moved by the events 
in Virginia, and that he could not engage to 
protect them from their fellow citizens, who 
had resolved that they must go. Many of 
these thus threatened saw that they must 
yield before an overwhelming force. 

After committing themselves to God in 
humble prayer, most of these thus warned 
retired from the State, beheving that "God 
would make the wrath of man to praise Him." 

At this time I was on my way home from 
New York. Friends at Berea importuned 
my wife to go and meet me, if possible, and 
tell me not to attempt to come home now, for 
men were waylaying me at three different 
places. Along with my daughter Laura I 
met my wife at Cincinnati, Ohio. The next 
day we met the exiles from Berea. It was 
deemed wise now to hold meetings in 
Cincinnati. From this place we went to an 
appointment, previously made for me, in 
Bethesda church-house, in Bracken County, 



150 AUTOBrOGRAPH\ OF 

Ky. Here, whilst in the stand preaching, 
some of my exiled children, not previously 
seen for months, came into the church-house. 
With these came other exiles. Among them 
was John G. Hanson and family. 

The Monday following this meeting was 
county court day in Bracken County. Already 
Bro. Jas. S. Davis had been driven from the 
church in Lewis County. J. M. Mallett, a 
teacher in the school at Bethesda, had been 
mobbed and driven out of Germantown, 
Bracken County. In sympathy with the slave 
power, public feeling was at white heat. It 
was estimated that 800 people gathered on that 
county court day at Brooksville, the county 
seat of Bracken County. A special meeting 
was called. Inflammatory speeches were 
made, referring to the John Brown raid in 
Virginia, the expulsion of Abolitionists from 
Berea, in Madison County, and from the 
"Abolition" church in Lewis County, and the 
expulsion of the "Abolition" teacher in 
Bracken County; and now it was claimed that 
the security of property and peace of society 
demanded that John G. Fee, John G. Hanson, 
and others associated with them, be not 
allowed to tarry, even for a short time, in 



JOHN G. FEE. 151 

Bracken County, their native county. Such 
a resolve against men unconvicted of any 
crime, present or past, and now in their native 
county, in the midst of relatives and hfe-long 
acquaintances, was as dastardly as it was vile. 
But the slave power was in its very nature 
one of oppression and outrage; and the great 
mass of the non-slave-owners had become 
servile; and, though not slave-owners, had 
consented to be slaveholders, and joined with 
or consented to the demand of the slave- 
owners. A committee of sixty-two men, of 
''high standing," was appointed to warn John 
G. Fee, John G. Hanson and others associated, 
to leave the county, "peaceably if they would, 
forcibly if they must." On the day appointed, 
the committee of sixty-two rode up to the 
yard fence in front of the dwelling-house of 
Vincent Hamilton, my father-in-law, where 
with my wife and children I was then stop- 
ping. These men then sent in a request that 
I come out. I did so, and Hstened to their 
resolutions. The committee then demanded 
from me a reply. I said, as my custom was 
on such occasions, "I make no pledges to 
surrender God-given and constitutional rights 
to any man or set of men. If I shall be con- 



152 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

victed of crime, before an impartial jury, 
then I will submit to adequate punishment." 
I then proceeded with further defense of my 
claim to citizenship and free speech, when the 
captain of the band ordered, "Forward, 
march." 

One of these men I took by the arm. He 
had been a member of the State Legislature. 
In his house my wife, in girlhood days, had 
boarded whilst attending school. With his 
sons I had studied in the school-room and 
played on the playground. This man was 
then an elder in the Presbyterian "church" at 
Sharon church-house, where my wife and I, 
years previously, had made profession of 
faith in Christ, and from the hands of this 
man we had received the emblems of the 
broken body and shed blood of our Lord. I 
referred to these things, and said to him, "Is 
this the treatment that we, convicted of no 
crime, should expect from one who has known 
us from childhood, with whom we have lived 
as neighbors, and who is now an ofhce-bearer 
in a professedly Christian church?" He re- 
plied, "It is not worth while for us to talk," and 
rode off in pursuit of the committee-men. 
These committee-men served a like notice 
upon J. G. Hanson and others. 



JOHN G. FEE. 153 

At first I thought I would not go from 
Bracken County, though it was not then my 
home. I had so expressed myself. Two 
members of the church there, John D. Gregg 
and John Humlong, men whose courage, 
fidelity and piety perhaps no man questioned, 
said, *'Our first impulse was to take our rifles 
and stand with you; but other friends warned 
to leave have decided to go, and we find that 
we will be utterly overwhelmed by the oppos- 
ing power, and if you stay we shall all be 
driven away." My father-in-law made the 
same remark.'^ This put a new phase on the 
issue. I might peril my own home, and had 
done so. I might not peril the home of an- 
other, especially when he had expressed his 
fear. A day of fasting and prayer was ap- 
pointed, and a meeting of brethren and sisters 
in Christ w^as held at the church-house. The 
conclusion was, "There is now such a reign 
of terror all over the State that you cannot 
get a hearing anywhere in the State." The 
same was the response from friends in Mad- 
ison County. Thus persecuted, the admoni- 
tion seemed pertinent, "When they persecute 
you in this city, flee ye into another." I said, 
"It is possible I cannot reach my own home, 



154 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

and could not get the friends together, even if 
there; but 'tis a time not to be silent." There- 
fore, John G. Hanson, mj^self and others, re- 
tired with our famihes for a time to the North 
and took up our abode in the suburbs of Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio. 

Notwithstanding the intense excitement in 
the country, my w^ife beheved she could get 
back to our home and get out our household 
goods. Accordingly, taking a carriage and 
our eldest son, then ten years old, she started, 
and on the third day, after overcoming severe 
difficulties, reached her home. She boxed up 
our goods, shipped them to Cincinnati, and 
returned to her father's house. From thence, 
with her children, she came to me, into a 
house I had secured near to Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Soon after this my youngest son, Tappan, 
then four years old, from exposure in the 
exodus in mid-winter, took a cold, which cul- 
minated in diphtheria and death. This was 
an hour of great sadness. With the impres- 
sion that I would yet return to my fields of 
labor in Kentucky, and as Joseph requested 
that his bones be taken back to Canaan, so 
with this Scripture in my mind, I decided to 
carry back the body of my dear boy, "bone 



JOHN G. FEE. 155 

of my bone, and flesh of my flesh," and thus 
strengthen my purpose to return, and my 
claim upon this, my native soil and field of 
labor, chosen in sacred covenant years pre- 
viously. In great sorrow I brought the dear 
form and buried it in the little graveyard ad- 
joining Bethesda church-house — a place ever 
dear to me. 

After the interment of the dear body we re- 
turned to Ohio. A few weeks later my wife 
and I returned to Bracken County, Ky., bring- 
ing with us head and foot stones with which 
to mark the resting-place of our dear boy. 

Soon after leaving the boat that landed us 
at the town of Augusta, I was surrounded by 
a mob, a gathering of citizens, many of whom 
considered themselves respectable people; 
and for a time I was not allowed to proceed 
farther. The only cause of this detention 
was mere hostiHty to me as a known Aboli- 
tionist. I had been born and reared in that 
county, and had preached to the people at 
Bethesda most of the ten preceding years. 
No man could prefer a charge of crime, and 
the object of my visit was humane and Chris- 
tian. Detention under such circumstances 
was an outrage too gross; and after a time I 



156 AUTOBIOGBAFHY OF 

was allowed to go on my way. I visited the 
grave of my child, preached on Lord's day, 
and, after a day or two, returned to my 
famity, then in Ohio. 

The unfinished work on my hands was the 
collection of money wdth which to pay for the 
land previously bought, as a site for Berea 
College. This money I succeeded in raising, 
and paid for the land on which most of the 
buildings of Berea College now stand. 

By this time the rebellion became imminent. 
The enmity on the part of many so-called 
Union men was more intense against Aboli- 
tionists than against rebels themselves. By 
many undiscerning men, the Abolitionists 
were charged with bringing on the war — 
precipitating the great calamit}- . This charge 
w^as as senseless as that of those who, with 
Ingersoll, charge Christianity with the perse- 
cutions waged by paganism and the papacy. 
Nevertheless, passion raged. The most that 
could be done was still to call upon the nation 
to obey God and *'let the oppressed go free"; 
— remove slavery, the festering cause. This, 
neither poHtical party then intended to do. 
The cry on both sides was, "a white man's 
war" — "let the nigger stay where he is." 



JOHN G. FEE. 157 

Even Abraham Lincoln then said, "Let us 
save the Union, slavery or no slavery." 

The Bull Run defeat came, and one reverse 
after another. The "before breakfast spell" 
of Wm. H. Seward lasted months and years. 
Slowly the people began to think that they 
must obey God, must "break every yoke and 
let the oppressed go free"; — that it was folly 
to attempt to conquer a people in their own 
territory and in their own fastnesses, without 
a vastly superior force. John C. Fremont had 
the sagacity to see this and act upon it. He 
made a proclamation of freedom to slaves in 
his department. The President of the nation, 
as commander-in-chief, revoked the proclama- 
tion as premature. The step taken by 
Fremont was in the right direction; and one 
from which the heart and judgment of the 
discerning part of the nation did not go back. 
Some of us thought we saw in this "the be- 
ginning of the end" — that blood and treasure 
was not henceforth to be spent in vain. 

Physical disability at this time forbade my 
entering the army and bearing arms. I also 
had a conviction that there must be a change 
of pubHc sentiment before there would be a 
vigorous change of tactics; and that therefore 

II 



158 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

my work was moral rather than physical; and 
that I must give myself to this in the most 
effective way — must do what I could to 
change public sentiment in free and slave 
States. 

After some months I said to my wife, "Let 
us go out into Kentucky on a tour of inspec- 
tion and see for ourselves the actual con- 
dition of society there." We came to Berea. 
We found John Morgan raiding the country, 
and society in a turmoil: still we found a few 
friends, natives of the State, who were here, 
and not wholly discouraged. We decided 
to go back, gather up our children, and come 
out to Berea and resume our previously- 
chosen, and, in purpose, never relinquished 
work. 




Mrs. Matilda H. Fee. 



JOHN G. FEE, 161 



CHAPTER VII. 

Effort to Get Back.— Battle at Richmond, Ky.— Again 
Mobbed at Augusta, Ky.— Mobbed at Washington, 
Ky.— Return of my Wife to Berea.— Her Stay There. 
— Return to the Border. — Stay at Parker's Academy, 
—Return to Berea.— Resumption of the Work. — 
Moved to go to Camp Nelson.— My Work There. 

We came up to Bracken County, and my 
wife, taking her horse and carriage, took the 
two eldest children and started across the 
country for Berea. I took the younger son 
and started around by Cincinnati, that I might 
there arrange for the publication of another 
anti-slavery tract, and also ship our household 
goods back to Berea. I found that our goods 
could not then be shipped. The government 
had the entire use of the railroad in shipping 
munitions of war. My son and I got as far as 
Richmond, Ky. There I engaged a single 
horse on condition that I would not take the 
horse into rebel lines. We mounted the 
horse, — Howard behind me, and came seven 
miles toward our home. 



162 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

We there met the Union forces retreating 
before the advance of Kirby Smith's invading 
army. Some Union troops w^ere gathered at 
and near to Richmond. These resisted the 
approach of the rebel army, but were over- 
powered and fell back to Richmond, thence to 
Lexington, and afterwards dispersed in vari- 
ous directions. I fell back with the Union 
forces to Lexington, and from thence to 
Bracken County. There I left my son How- 
ard, then eleven years old, with his grand- 
father. I went on to Augusta, a town on the 
Ohio river, intending, if possible, to get 
around to m}^ wife and the other children, 
then at Berea. 

Whilst waiting on the wharf for the down 
packet I was there seized by a mob and 
brought up into the town and taken into the 
office of Dr. Josh Bradford, a man who pro- 
fessed to be a Union man, and was then help- 
ing to raise a regiment of men. These pro- 
fessedly Union men hated AboHtionists more 
than they did the rebels. They demanded 
that I pledge to leave the State and never 
come back again. I said, "I make no pledges 
to men." A great crowd was outside. Brad- 
ford, a relative on my father's side, went out, 



JOHN G. FEE. 163 

and soon returned, and calling me by name, 
said, "We are going to put you across the 
river, and if you come back again I will hang 
you if it be the last act of my life." I said, 
"Do your duty, and I will try to do mine." 
Eight of the company took me to a flat boat, 
which they had in readiness. They suffered 
no others to get into the boat. As the crowd 
turned away I heard the leader say, "We will 
whip him Hke hell." They started off for 
other boats, — skiffs. The eight mt^n put me 
across the river. As the boat struck the 
shore on the Ohio side I stepped on to the shore, 
and seeing the rabble as pursuers lower down 
the river, I walked quickty up the bank, and 
seeing a cornfield before me leaped the fence 
and w^as soon out of sight of pursuers. I 
could hear the men w^ho were seeking for me 
passing up and down the banks. I passed 
across the field and ascended the hill risino- 
from the banks on the Ohio side. I sat 
down. It was now the month of Aug-ust. 

The moon was full, and shone brightl}^ on 
"Olimba's silver wave." Over on the oppo- 
site side was the town of Augusta. There 
stood the old college building, where for years 
I had pursued the early part of my college 



164 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

course. There, too, was the little brick build- 
ing where my wife, boarding with her aunt, 
had spent part of her early school days. I 
said. Why am I thus an exile, and hunted like 
a wild beast? I have injured no man. 1 have 
violated no law. My only offense is that I 
have plead for the slave, and ask that men 
obey the command of their Lord, "Do unto 
men as ye would that they do unto you." I 
thought of my wife and children far in the 
interior of the State, in the midst of rebel 
forces, and there without bread to eat or a 
bed on which to sleep, only as others might 
share with them. 

I did not dare compare myself with our 
Lord; but I thought of him in Nazareth, 
where those who were relatives, and knew 
him from childhood, sought to kill him, — dash 
him headlong over a deadly precipice. 

I sat there thinking of the slave-father, sun- 
dered far from his wife and children, with no 
hope of ever seeing them again. I then said, 
A loving Father will overrule all this for 
good. I shall be the better prepared for my 
work, and by these and like events moral 
forces will be prepared by which good will 
break this system of iniquity to pieces as a 
potter's vessel is broken. 



JOHN G. FEE. 165 

At early dawn I left the spot of command- 
ing view, and the place of mingled sorrow and 
joy, and went down to the house of a friend, 
and the mother of one who had been with me 
as college mate. With this mother and fam- 
ily I took breakfast. By first down boat I 
went down to Covington, Ky., and out into 
Lew. Wallace's camp. He had here the 
command of Union forces by which to pre- 
vent the advance of Kirby Smith's army on 
to Cincinnati. After a few days I went to 
Oberlin, Ohio, that I might there attend a 
meeting of the American Missionary Asso- 
ciation. 

From OberUn I came back to Bracken 
County, Ky., and to the house of my father- 
in-law. Taking my son, Howard, I came up 
to Washington, Mason County, hoping there 
to take the stage coach. We went to the house 
of a Presbyterian minister who had often 
been at my father's house, and with whom I 
had often broken bread around the table of 
our Lord. This man was not at home when 
we first went to his house, and stage time 
having not yet come, we tarried. 

When the minister arrived 1 saw I was not 
a welcome guest. He soon said, "I am sorry 



166 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

you are here"; and then turning said, "Do you 
see those men gathering?" I had not noticed 
them. He added, "They do not intend to let 
you pass." Soon the men were in his yard 
and had surrounded me. The preacher said, 
"Some of these men are members of my 
church. They will not hurt you." Resistance 
was useless, — escape impossible. We were 
surrounded and borne along down into the 
town. The crowd continued to increase, and 
it became manifest they could not afford to 
stay there all night. I had committed no 
breach of the peace; there could be no legal 
action against me, and the question arose, 
"What shall we do with him?" The decision 
was, "Take him back to Augusta." At that 
place I had been previously in the hands of 
two different mobs; and I had no desire to be 
hauled twelve or fifteen miles at that hour of 
night, in order to revisit the town of Augusta. 
The captain of the crowd ordered his slave 
man to go out to his farm and bring horse and 
spring wagon. Whether by design or other- 
wise, the slave was a long time gone. In the 
meantime young B., the captain of the crowd, 
was boasting his courage at the bar of the 
hotel near by. At length the team came, and 
further preparations were being made. 



JOHN G. FEE. 167 

All this while my then little son was mov- 
ing to and fro in the crowd, hearing each 
word and watching each action. This quiet 
vigilance, together with the manifest injustice 
to me, touched the sympathy and aroused the 
indignation of a noble man who stood as a 
spectator. He occupied a high social position, 
and yet lives, and loves to inquire about that 
"little boy." He determined to protect the 
boy and save me from the proposed outrage. 
He communicated his purpose to three others 
who felt as he did, and they agreed to aid 
him. When the team was ready, he and his 
men offered their service to the captain, and 
stepped into the wagon. In a few moments 
we were off and the team moving rapidly on. 

When the team came to the road leading off 
to Augusta, friend H. took hold of the 
lines and said, "No! let's take him to Mays- 
ville and deliver him up to Judge C." 

This, to the then drunken owner of the 
team, seemed like "business." He yielded. 
Our friend kept the reins, and soon we were 
in Maysville, and in the room of Judge C. 
The Judge, having over me no jurisdiction, 
after a friendly shake hands with me took the 
young drunken man aside and told him what 



168 AUTOBIOGEAFHY OF 

might be the serious consequences of his 
action. I and my son tendered our friend H, 
our thanks for his kind interposition, and we 
walked down the street, and crossed over the 
river to a quiet hotel in the town opposite, 
slept well, arose in the morning, took break- 
fast, and then returned to Ma3^sville, on the 
Kentucky side, and conferred with friends. I 
was assured that I could not travel in Ken- 
tucky at that juncture, and that my family was 
safer without me than with me, and that what 
Union men were left about Berea, were either 
seized and paroled, or carried off into rebel 
States. If any escaped these conscriptions, 
they were so only as they were for the time 
hid in the caves and the mountains. It seemed 
to be the part of wisdom that I tarry until the 
"cloud should rise." 

Ten weeks had elapsed since I had seen my 
wife and the two eldest children. These 
were weeks of commotion, anxiety and peril. 
As previously stated, when I started around 
by Cincinnati, my wife, with her two children, 
had started in her private carriage across the 
country for our inland home. The country 
at that time was full of soldiers, Union and 
Rebel. The tirst day she came as far as five 



JOHN G. FEE. 169 

miles south of Blue Licks, a noted "watering- 
place." The next day, after long delays, be- 
cause of soldiery and government teams, she 
came to a country store and "tavern"— eight- 
een miles from her home. The next morning, 
after securing a small supply of groceries for 
a destitute home in a destitute region, she 
started for home. On coming through Rich- 
mond, our county seat, the people, men and 
women, expressed surprise at seeing a woman 
driving along the highway. She had not pro- 
ceeded more than three miles when she was 
halted by Union pickets, who at first sus- 
pected she might be a rebel spy, conveying 
news to Kirby Smith's men, who were already 
near to her home. Her frank manner, her 
commendation of "eternal vigilance as the 
price of liberty," her story of who she was 
and where she was going, together with the 
Union flag painted on her carriage, and mani- 
festly, not recently, painted for effect, but of 
previous design — all these considerations con- 
strained the otHcer to sa}^, "Let her go; she is 
all right." She came to her humble home, con- 
structed, a bedstead, filled a tick with straw, 
borrowed a blanket to sleep under, lay down 
with her two children and slept. The next 



170 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

day whilst out hunting up some simple cook- 
ing utensils which two years previously she 
had distributed among neighbors, rebel sol- 
diers came into her house, took her borrowed 
blanket, her coarse and fine comb, her better 
shoes and Burritt's hat, and the carriage har- 
ness. The horse and carriage were hid in the 
woods. My daughter Laura had a very nice 
Union flag which her mother had made, and 
with this a set of silver spoons her grand- 
father had given to her; these she had hid up 
in the eaves-trough. These the rebels did not 
find; so the present loss of the little famih' 
was not great, and they could say with Col. 
Slack's slave, *'Blessed be nothing; I has 
nothing to lose, and nothing to be sorry for." 
Thousands of Kirby Smith's men were then 
encamped near by. With some other women 
my wife went to the encampment to see the 
complexion of the rebel soldier)-. Whilst sit- 
ting with other women a rebel officer rode up, 
and addressing himself politely, inquired of 
my wife for her home, and then for the "poli- 
tics" of the region. My wife said, *'My home 
is near by; and as for politics, we are for the 
Union, and believe slavery is wrong, and that 
the rebels are fighting for a lost cause." The 



JOHN G. FEE 171 

officer inquired, "Madam, ain't you fiom the 
North?" She replied, "No, this is my home 
and my native State." Again he inquired in 
a tone derisive, *'Madam, are you an Aboli- 
tionist?" She replied, "I am." "Well," said 
he, ''I have seen some men who were Abo- 
litionists, but I never before this saw a woman 
who was." My wife then asked, "Why are 
you here with the uniform of our men on 
you?" He had a Union belt on him with U. 
S. inverted. He rephed, "Madam, don't you 
see that is S. U. —Southern Union?" and rode 
off. Not long after this she heard the can- 
non's roar at Perrysville. Soon this was fol- 
lowed by the retreating rebel army with 
trains of wagons laden with plunder, and 
herds of lowing cattle famishing for the want 
of water. 

Three rebel officers came up to her house 
and asked for food. My wife had some pota- 
toes, meal, coarse flour and milk. She gave 
to them bread and milk, with baked potatoes. 
They received this kindly, and were very re- 
spectful. Soon after they were gone my wife 
learned that some rebel soldiers were in her 
potato patch, grabbling her potatoes. 

A friend who had occupied the house for a 



f 



172 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

time, left for her a small plat of ground 
planted with potatoes. Taking her son Burritt 
with her, she went for her potatoes. Something 
to live on then was an item of concern. She 
came to the fence and said, ''Men, I have fed 
your officers, and now 3'ou are taking the last 
potato I have; this is no credit to you." One 
young fellow looked up pertly and said, 
"Madam, credit has gone up long ago." They 
filled their haversacks and went on. 

Scenes of privation, anxiety and toil went 
on from day to day. At the end of ten weeks 
my wife's mother came, informing her where 
I was, and helped her and the children back 
to the border of the State. 

In Kentucky society was in turmoil. There 
was no opportunity for consecutive work. 
We passed over into Clermont County, Ohio, 
put our children into Parker's x\cademy, and 
tarried there some months ourselves, and 
found true friends whom we shall ever hold 
dear. 

After a few months the government began 
in some of the Gulf States the work of en- 
listing colored men. I then began to have 
hope of a speedy and successful termination of 
the war. I had from the beginning of the 



JOHN G. FEE. 173 

war continuously said, "I do not believe we 
will succeed until we begin enlisting men as 
men,— not merely white men." With this 
dawning light I said to my wife, "We will try 
it again; gather our children and go to 
Berea." To this place we came in 1864. 

The friends previously exiled had not yet 
returned. \Vith a desire to keep ahve the 
QJ:iginaI_purpose, and to resuscitate, to some 
extent, the school previously broken up, I 
gathered together, as far as possible, the chil- 
dren of the few sympathizing families, took 
charge of a class myself, and committed the 
other classes to my wife and eldest daughter. 

Soon after this arrangement, whilst sitting 
in my study, thinking of the political and 
social condition around me, these words came 
to me with wonderful force, "Prepare thy 
work without, and make it fit for thyself in 
the field; and afterwards build thine house." 
Prov. 24: 27. I did not remember to have 
seen the text before; but of course I had, in 
general reading, though at that moment I was 
not reading my Bible. The text came to me 
in such manner and with such force, that I 
could not but regard it as from the Spirit of 
God; and therefore a call to the work indi- 



174 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

cated. The thing Indicated to me was this: 
Until the work on the battlefield shall be first 
settled, there will be no permanency, or 
marked progress in 3'our work here, eitlier in 
school or church; — go do 3^our part. That 
part, as I then beheved, was moral, rehgious; 
rather than physical, — the actual bearing of 
arms. I had hitherto no confidence that the 
government would succeed, until it began to 
''break ever}' yoke and let the oppressed go 
free"; until it began to enlist men as men, — 
and not merely as white men. I also knew 
that just at that time colored men were being 
enlisted in Kentucky. I believed I knew more 
about the movements of the government and 
the feelings of the people North, than these 
colored men did, and that there were reasons 
why I could instruct, comfort and encourage 
them, — reasons Vv^hy they would hear me, and 
also reasons why lo3^al white men would hear 
me. 

Without counsel from, or commission from 
any board, I immediately prepared to go; 
took my eldest son, my dear Burritt, then liv- 
ing, and on the next Saturday started for 
Camp Nelson, thirty-five miles distant. 

I found there two regiments of colored men, 



JOHN G. FEE. 175 

forming, — not complete. The next day, Lord's 
day, I mingled freely with these colored sol- 
diers and their officers; and at night preached 
to a large assemblage of them. This was to 
me, and to many of these men, a melting oc- 
casion. We saw then, in its first unfolding, 
what we had long and anxiously prayed for, — 
"the beginning of the end" — the freedom of 

-menr. white and colored; freedom in such 
manner as would give prestige to the latter, 
and sympathy from the former. 

On Monday morning I went to the office 
of the Quartermaster, then in Camp Nelson, 
Ky., to secure, if possible, a place for relig- 
ious service and regular preaching. I found 
the Quartermaster at his post, — a five man. I 
told him who I was, and what I wanted. He 
immediately replied, "I know you, — all about 
you, and have for years. My home is Holden, 
Mass. I will give you every facifity I can. 
But," said he, "we want teaching for these 
colored men as well as preaching. They, es- 
pecially the non-commissioned officers, need 
to JoQ. taught to write, — sign their names to. 
their reports." I said, "Furnish me a house 

_and jdj£sks^ and I will secure teachers,— do the 
work^' He agreed to do so. I then went to 

12 



176 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

the commandant of the camp, Gen. S. S. Fry, 
whose home was then in Danville, Ky. He 
was and is a Christian gentleman. He gave 
to the proposed work his hearty endorsement; 
and within eight days Capt. T. E. Hall, who 
had three saw-mills and hands "ad libitum" at 
his command, had enclosed a school-room 
thirty feet wide and a hundred feet long, fur- 
nished with writing tables. Teachers were 
secured, and the colored soldiers instructed. 

At my request Edward Harwood, of Cin- 
cinnati, forwarded a large bell, — the bell that 
now hangs in the belfry of Howard Hall, 
Berea. This was speedily mounted on a der- 
rick, and at stated hours called soldiers to 
class, and, at other hours, the people to wor- 
ship. 

I secured instructors for these men. They 
were intensely eager to learn how to make 
reports and write their names. Gen. Fry was 
interested in this help to his soldiery, and oc- 
casionally by his personal presence and words 
of exhortation encouraged the men to efforts 
of perseverance. There was now no fear 
that these men would write passports for free- 
dom. They were in the enjoyment of the 
long-prayed-for boon. 



JOHN G. FEE. Ill 

This was a time of thrilling interest to me. < J_ 
There was now not only the fair prospect that ^ 
the nation would be delivered from the perils ? 

of a wicked rebellion, but with this, the free- 
dom of the then five million of slaves. These 
were now, by the demand of loyal men, and 
the proclamation of the nation's chief execu- 
tive, to go forth as free men and free women; 
— a consummation for which I, in common 
w^ith others, had long prayed and labored. 

The event came in a way we had not prayed 
for; it came in blood, yet in a way of indi- 
vidual and national peril that overcame former 
antipathies and race distinction, and engen- 
dered mutual sympathies that nothing short of 
the superabounding grace of God, — another 
sheet from Heaven to bigoted Peters, — could 
have overcome. 

There were additional thrills of interest to 
me. I had long been shunned, through fear 
of others, by those who had a secret sympathy 
with me, and had long been hated and perse- 
cuted by others. Now, to meet the benignant 
smiles and grateful benedictions of colored 
men, and the friendty, hearty grasp of hand 
by loyal white men, was a revelation as grate- 
ful as new, — to be felt but not described. It 



178 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

was also a providence by which I became per- 
sonally acquainted with officials and privates, 
colored and white, and my face and character 
known to thousands, yet in the State, and a 
providence by which I can yet do good to 
them and their children. Nor should any one 
be surprised if, from associations of the past, I 
shoiild be greatly attached to that beautiful 
spot, Camp Nelson; the cradle of liberty to 
central Kentucky. There the thousands, 
men, women and children, received their 
passports from government officials, into that 
freedom which naturally is the heritage ofall 
men. May that place, as well as Berea, be a 
fountain of good to the State, and ever free 
from Rum, Caste, Sect and Secretism. I 
wish some one, by his or her means, would 
lift the school and church there into yet 
higher efficiency. 

There was another phase of the work at 
Camp Nelson, then of interest to me, and con- 
nected by principle and effect with the work 
at Berea. The enlistment of colored men_^t 
Camp Nelson was soon followed by the com- 
ing of their v/ives and children. These were 
affirst driven out of the camp at the point of 
the bayonet. Thus sent back, they were ex- 



JOHN G. FEE. 179 

posed to the cruelty of their former masters. 
I saw indignation rising in the hearts and 
showing itself in the actions of the colored 
soldiers. I went to the officials and said to 
them, "This, -driving back of wives and chil- 
dren will breed mutiny in your camp unless 
'you desist." The reply was, "What will you 
■^o? — will you leave the women and chil- 
dren with the soldiers? That will never do." 
I said, "No; I would draw a picket line and 
put the women in the west end of the camp, 
which is abundantly large and encircled by 
Kentucky river and cliffs four hundred 
feet high. Such a natural fortification, 
high, beautiful, and well-watered, was not 
anywhere else found in the State." "But," 
said the Quartermaster, "I can do noth- 
ing in the way of shelter without an order 
from the Secretary of War." I replied, "I 
knqw_Secretary Chase personally. I will pre- 
pare a paper to be sent to his care." "Do so," 
said the Quartermaster, "and I will sign it." 
The paper was forwarded. Quickly an order 
came from Stanton, the Secretary of War, for 
the construction of buildings; and in a short 
time the Quartermaster had ninety-two cot- 
tages erected as homes for families, two larger 



X 



180 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

buildings as hospitals for sick women and 
children, and other buildings as school-rooms 
and offices, boarding hall, and dormitory fori 
teachers, steward and family ._ 

Spending, as I did, a Sabbath in a neighbor- 
ing cit}^ I saw in the congregation (colored) 
a young woman of light complexion, whose 
manner, as she came to the altar to partake of 
the Lord's Supper, favorably impressed me. 
I inquired of the pastor who she was. He 
told me she was a member of that church, 
with fair education and good parentage. Im- 
mediately it occurred to me that she was the 
woman with whom to test the caste question 
among the teachers at Camp Nelson, and set 
the precedent of giving positions to colored 
persons as fast as prepared for such. Mon- 
day morning I called on her parents and told 
to them my wish and plan. I suggested to 
them and the daughter what might be the op- 
position; but such, I said, would be un-Christ- 
Hke, and the sooner met the better, and that 
perhaps the daughter was "raised up for a 
time like this." They consented to the ar- 
rangement, and on Wednesday the young 
lady was at the office of the school-building. 
Immediately I assigned to her a room in the 



JOHN G, FEE. 181 

dormitory, and put her in charge of a class of 
pupils. At the dinner hour I gave to her in 
the common dining-hall a chair and place at 
the table at which I presided. The presence 
of this young lady at one of the several tables 
in the common dining-hall, produced a sensa- 
tion. A chaplain to one of the regiments, 
whose home was down in Maine, together 
with some army officials also boarding at the 
hall, protested against this young woman's 
eating in the common boarding-hall. All the 
lady teachers (white) sent there by the 
American Missionary Association and the 
Freedman's Aid Society, refused, with two 
exceptions, to come to the first tables whilst 
the young woman was eating. She was, in 
person, tidy, modest, comely. It is just to say 
that the secretaries of the American Mission- 
ary Association would not have endorsed the 
action of those teachers, who thus refused to 
eat at the common table with such a teacher 
as the one referred to. 

A major, whose home was in Illinois, and 
the steward, whose home was in the same 
State, came to me and suggested that I re- 
move the young woman. I saw the moment 
for decision had come, and in a quiet manner 



182 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

said, "I will suffer my right arm torn from 
my body before I will remove the young 
woman." And that they might see that I was 
not arbitrary in my decision, I said, "The 
young woman is fitted for her position; she is 
modest and discreet; she is a Christian, and 
as such, Christ's representative. What I do 
to her I do to him." Both of these men were 
professing Christians, and one of them a local 
preacher, at home. 

The steward said his wife would not give 
the young woman a plate. I repHed, "Then 
she shall have mine, and I will have another"; 
for. the control had been given to me, and I 
meant to keep it, and use it. 

That one, who was then a young woman, is 
now the wife of one of the trustees of Berea 
College. Events, Hke summer clouds, often 
cast their shadows before them. 

During the latter part of the war, for some 
fifteen months, I gave most of ni}' time and 
labor to the work in Camp Nelson, Ky. 
Whilst there I organized a school and gath- 
ered together believers into a church, deliv- 
ered from rum, secretism and sect. The 
church and school remain free from rum, sect 
and secretism up to the present time. I saw 



JOHN G. FEE, 183 

then, as now, the importance of such a church 
and school in that central part of the State; 
in che midst of an immense colored popula- 
tion, and in a region fertile and beautiful. I 
tried to induce others to buy lands there, par- 
cel out and give facilities for a self-sustaining 
community. No one would do so. My own 
patrimony was spent. By my wife selHng 
what land she had in a free State (where there 
was progress) and myself borrowing five 
hundred dollars, we could then secure there 
for the purpose suggested, 130 acres of land. 
Knowing that the investment must be relatively 
and largely a sinking fund, we secured the 
land, and divided it into lots and small tracts. 

Forty-two families have now their own 
homes there, and thus give home patronage to 
school and church. The Academy has 107 
acres of land, and two good buildings. A 
charter has been secured from the State 
Legislature for the village and the Academy. 
Some man or woman could now do a o-ood 
work there by building up a good industrial 
department. 



184 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Return to Berea.— Resumption of the Work.— The 
American Missionary Association. — Work Denom- 
inational—Divisive. — Association of Ministers and 
Churches.— Kentucky Missionary Association.— A 
Convention of Christians.— An Address, "Wherein 
We Differ from the Denominations." 

At the close of the war I came back to 
Berea and gave most of my time and strength 
to the work of helping to build up the school 
and church at Berea. This work has been 
sheltered and prospered. The College has 
ample grounds, good buildings, and an en- 
dowment of a hundred and six thousand 
dollars. Most of the time for the past fifteen 
years there have been here from three to four 
hundred pupils. Of these not less than one 
hundred and fifty go out each year to take 
charge of as many schools. These teachers 
impart the sentiments they have here imbibed 
and thus become a leavening, moulding in- 
fluence throughout the land. 

The church here, numbering now some 
two hundred and twenty-three members, is 



JOHN G. FEE. 185 

the one church of the place — now as from the 
beginning, in the year 1853, undenominational V 
and unsectarian. Here those converted from ' 
the world, colored and white, together with 
those who once were Methodists, Baptists, 
Presbyterians, Congregationalists or Disci- 
ples, drop their denominational and divisive 
names, unite on Christ, and thus constitute 
the one church of the place. Hundreds go 
out from this place as one in Christ to carry 
this gospel of love and unity to others. 

We beheve that God by his Word and 
Spirit and his providence, has led to this 
unity, as it existed in the primitive church. 
We have been jealous of, and have repeatedly 
resisted and sloughed off, any and every 
denominational or ecclesiastical encroachment 
that might in any wise hinder the divine plan. 
This will be seen from further efforts and 
actions. 

The American Missionary Association, with 
which I had been for many years associated, 
had in its early history been undenominational- 
In the year I86^^the Association was adopted 
by Congregation ahsts as an agency and society 
of that denomination, and the Association ac- 
cepted the adoption, thus forsaking those who 



186 A UTOBTOGBA PHY OF 

in the past had aided in its organization and 
growth, and in part, at least, because of its 
undenominational character. The Association 
is now in its official reports declared to be "the 
left wing of the Congregational corps" (see 
report, 1872) — also "as one of two Congrega- 
tional missionary societies in the South," the 
A. M. A. and the A. H. M. S., and that "this 
association, debarred from its distinctive work 
at the first, wisely began efforts of its own." 
This "distinctive work of church planting" be- 
gan in 1867. (See report of 1883.) "It was not 
a felt want of the South that there should be 
planted another denomination." The secreta- 
ries of the A. M. A. said: "Our Congrega- 
tional churches, whilst it is important to plant 
them, are not the first need. They can enter 
but slowly. The people do not appreciate 
them nor ask for them." (See report for 
December, 1882.) They might have added 
that, except in the cities or where there was a 
large Northern population such churches have 
been very small. The truth is, that Con- 
gregationalism, like Methodism or Presby- 
terianism, is a sect, a part of the body, 
named and recognized as such; not worse than 
others, but one of them. The churches in 



JOHN G. FEE. 187 

this denomination have their creeds, and these, 
as a rule, are sectarian, so uniformly so that 
the national council at Burial Hill declared: 
''We are Calvinistic in our faith." Samuel 
Wolcot says: "The Methodists receive what 
is called the Arminian system; we the 
Calvinistic." Joseph E. Roy, secretary of the 
American Missionary Association, in his 
Manual for Congregational Churches, says: 
"We adhere to the faith of the primitive 
churches held by our fathers and substantially 
embodied in the confessions and platforms as 
set forth in the synods of 1648 and 1680." 
These platforms are intensely Calvinistic. 
Again, he says we are "one branch of Christ's 
people, adhering to our peculiar faith and 
order." Again he says, "Congregationalists 
hold that baptism should be given to the in- 
fant children of beHevers." (P. 13.) The 
National Council of churches appointed a 
committee of twenty-one eminent divines, to 
draft a creed and confession to be submitted 
to the Congregational churches. That part 
of the eleventh article thus prepared, which 
refers to baptism, reads as follows: "We be- 
lieve that baptism is to be administered to be- 
lievers and their children." Joseph Cook re- 



188 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

orarded this creed as divisive. He said: "It 
would shut out Dr. Hackett, Pres. Wayland 
and thousands of others." This creed had a 
national endorsement at the National Council 
at Worcester, Mass., in 1890. Certain dele- 
gates from Georgia were accepted because it 
w^as declared* that "they have adopted our 
creed and our polity." It proves nothing to 
say that Congregationalists are less sectarian 
than others. It is not the amount of evil, but 
the fact that an evil principle is supported. 
We have long since known that it was the 
moderate slaveholders that made slavery re- 
spectable. 

I had in 1847 withdrawn from the Presby- 
terian church because of its persistent con- 
nection with slaveholding, and in the same 
year refused aid from the Home Missionary 
Society because of its persistent support of 
slaveholding churches; — and for the same 
reason the founders of the American Mission- 
ary Association withdrew their support and 
all association with that society. And now I 
feel that I must refuse all aid from the Ameri- 
can Association because of its support of 
sectarianism^ and its aggressive w^ork in 
building up denominationalism; confessedly a 



JOHN a. FEE. 189 

great wrong, a great hindrance to truth and 
righteousness. 

I said, too, "CongregationaHsm, Hke the 
other denominations, is an ecclesiasticism, hav- 
ing more or less control over its ministers and 
churches. In the language of its own authori- 
ties: 'Congregationalists do not approve of 
>he name Independents, and are abhorrent to 
such principles of independency as would 
shut them from giving an account of their 
matters to neighboring churches regularly de- 
manding it of them.' 'CongregationaHsm is 
a communion of churches bound together by 
ties similar to those which bind together mem- 
bers of a single church.' All this designates 
a party — associated on opinions to which all 
believers could not subscribe. As such it is 
a division in the body of our Lord." 

I said, "The division of Christians into sects 
and denominations is contrary to the letter and 
the spirit of the Gospel, a hindrance to re- 
forms, and to the greatest progress of Christ's 
kingdom. As such, I may not bid it God- 
speed." It was said to me, "Neither you nor 
the local church need take the name of Con- 
gregationalist — stand as you are." But I re- 
plied, "While I do not question your motives 



190 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

nor depreciate the good work you are able to 
accomplish, in some respects, I can-not approve 
of your methods. I shall be reported in the Con- 
gregational Year Book; and as receiving your 
aid. It would not be acting in good faith with 
you or with my own conscience to accept 
your beneficence and protest against your 
policy as radically wrong." I dechned the aid 
of the Association. We are not "Congrega- 
tionalist" — we accept no denominational ar- 
rangement or title. 

THE ASSOCIATION OF MINISTERS AND CHURCHES. 

Some of us w^ho were workers here in Berea 
went, though with expressed objections, 
into another effort for what w^e then con- 
ceived might be necessary to the maintenance 
of truth and the highest efficiency. We 
formed "an Association of Ministers and 
Churches," bound together by a constitution 
which, though on a very catholic basis, was 
nevertheless an ecclesiasticism and a departure 
from w^hat now seems to us the primitive 
order, and which involved church responsibili- 
ties. The objections to this arrangement 
were set forth in an article in the Berea 
Evangelist, and in the following words: 

I. An "Association of Ministers and 



JOHN G. FEE. 191 

Churches" is a departure from the primitive 
order. The primitive order w^as to leave each 
church strictly independent. Each local 
church chose its own officers, disciplined its 
own offenders, and tried its own teachers. 
The local church, after the canon of Scripture 
was established, was the sole judge of fitness, 
of order, of doctrine, — no space left for hier- 
archies or ecclesiasticisms. The divine pat- 
tern was complete and sufficient. This seems 
to us the New Testament doctrine, and while 
we do not make its acceptance a condition of 
our fellowship, it ought at least to be a rule 
for our own conduct. 

2. Organizing "ministers and churches" — 
a class — into an association, on a basis which, 
however catholic, if the usage prevails of ex- 
tending the immunities and privileges of the 
Association only to those who are members of 
the body, and only to such members of the 
churches as are delegates, shows that the 
Association is a sect, — separated from others; 
then they become a clan. 

Individual Christians may come up from all 
parts of the district, meet in convention, de- 
liberate and devise, and return to their 
respective homes or churches, and not be a 
clan. J 



192 AUTOBIOGBAPHY OF 

3. By organizing as an "Association of 
Ministers and Churches" we incur associate 
responsibihties, and guilt, if crime is per- 
sistently fellowshipped in the Association. 
God holds churches responsible for the con- 
duct of their members, (i Cor. v: 13: 2 
John Ti; Rev. 2: 14.) Not individual min- 
isters onty, but churches, are members of the 
Association, and we, as members of the body, 
are responsible for their conduct in bidding 
God speed to wrong doers, — such as swear to 
conceal crime, take blasphemous oaths, and 
expurgate the name of Christ from the Scrip- 
tures they use, or the prayers they offer in 
their lodges. Some of the churches of the 
Association we then had, held and received 
such persons to their membership. But if in- 
dividuals or churches are not constituent parts, 
then they are not responsible for each other's 
actions. If one or a dozen individual mem- 
bers of a church should, of their own accord, 
go to a Christian convention, and the con- 
vention should do any wrong or unwise thing, 
the church of which those individuals are 
members would not be responsible. These 
individuals would not go as delegates, or rep- 
resentatives, or agents of the church. But 



JOHN G. FEE. 193 

if that church should be an integral part of an 
ecclesiastical association, and send to a meet- 
ing of this association delegates as repre- 
sentatives,— agents,— for the church, then the 
church would be responsible for the acts of the 
association so long as it should continue fel- 
lowship with it; and if the association, or any 
part of the churches composing it, should 
commit sin, all the members of the association 
would be partakers of the sin so long as they 
should fellowship the sinner. 

The Association of Churches and Ministers 
was abandoned. Most of the members 
favored the calling of conventions of individ- 
ual Christians, to promote mutual fellowship 
and to extend the work of evangelization. 
Such a convention was called and adopted the 
plan for a missionary association presented in 
the following circular: 

THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION 
OF KENTUCKY. 

The reader will ask, Why another organi- 
zation? We answer, that while the rehgious 
denominations, and the missionary societies 
that represent them, seek to convert men to 
Christ, they make a distinction between de- 
nominational and Christian fellowship by ap- 



194 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP 

pending doctrines, polities and characteristics 
not essential to Christian life and character. 
Such a distinction is manifestly unwarranted 
by the Word of God, is contrary to the com- 
mand of the apostle, "that there be no schism 
in the body" (i Cor. 12: 25), and the prayer 
of our Saviour, "that they may all be one" 
(John 17: 21). Such denominational divis- 
ions beget weakness, and tempt men for sake 
of numbers ton'eceive to their fellowship per- 
sons living in un-Christ-like practices, such as 
connection with the secret lodge system, the 
use, manufacture and sale of intoxicating 
drinks, and the spirit and practice of caste in 
the "household of faith." Because so many 
Christians have been "carnal and walk as 
men," they have separated those whom God 
hath joined together, and divided the Body 
wherein "there is neither Greek nor Jew, cir- 
cumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, 
Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and 
in all." 

There are in Kentucky and other States, 
churches that are now, and for years have 
been, separate from these denominational or- 
ganizations and un-Christ-Hke practices. They 
neec aid in pastoral support and in their 



JOHN O. FEE, 195 

efforts to extend the Gospel. They propose 
no separation from the whole family of Christ, 
nor even an association with each other as a 
distinctive body. They find no warrant for a 
separate association of churches in the Word 
of God, and believe that such separate asso- 
ciations tend only to a forbidden schism in the 
body of our Lord. 

The Christian Missionary Association which 
asks your aid, is made up not of churches, as 
such, but of individuals. This association has 
been regularly incorporated, as an association, 
by the Legislature of Kentucky. This Asso- 
ciation, at their regular meetings, will hear 
reports, audit accounts, vote appropriations, 
appoint missionaries, and an executive board 
to aid in its objects, who also may send out 
laborers and who shall supervise the work of 
evangelization. 

This association seeks the unification of all 
believers in Christ, and their united opposition 
to all known iniquity. We aim to conserve 
the material and moral resources of the church 
by bringing together, as far as practicable, all 
Christians in any given locality, on the basis of 
a common unity in Christ. Whilst we shall 
give aid to those seeking the suppression of 



196 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

the use of and traffic in intoxicating drinks, and 
in opposing all secret orders, we shall espe- 
cially seek to send out and assist those evan- 
gelists who shall preach Christ in all the full- 
ness of his character, baptizing all thus con- 
verted into his name, and organizing them 
into undenominational churches, whose onl}- 
head is the Lord Jesus Christ. The present 
Executive Board is located at Berea, Madison 
County, Kentucky, and will receive and dis- 
burse all funds as directed b}^ the donor. 

J. G. Fee, President. 

H. H. HiNMAN, Cor. Sec'y. 

Alfred Titus, } j^ ^ , 

' } Rec. Sec s. 

James Van Winkle, ) 

S. G. Hanron, Treas. 
The readers will see in all these efforts 
there has been a continuous purpose to have 
the church free from all complicity with wrong 
doing, — have it free from all ecclesiasticisms 
that embarrass the utterance of truth, or hin- 
der reforms and involve associate responsi- 
bility or guilt, — an effort to plant churches as 
planted by our Lord and his apostles, — inde- 
pendent and undenominational. The divine 
pattern will yet be found to be the wisest and 
most efficient. Perhaps, on this point, I can 



JOHN O. FEE. 197 

do the reader no better service than by di- 
recting his attention to an address the writer 
delivered before the Christian convention 
held in Dayton, Ohio, May 21-23, 1890. 

AN ADDRESS, BY JOHN G. FEE. 

Delivered before the late Christian Union Convention, 
held in Dayton, Ohio, May 21-23, 1890. 

The object of this convention, as set forth in 
the call, is to suggest ways and devise means 
by which to secure the visible union of all 
true Christians in any given locality, as the 
one church of that locahty; and this union on 
the basis of manifested faith in the Lord 
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as the Saviour 
from sin. 

As announced in the programme, I propose 
to show "wherein this movement differs from 
the denominations around us." 

All the denominations, in all that is peculiar 
to them as such, begin with opinions — opin- 
ions about a doctrine, about a rite, a poHty, 
and in their distinctive work build upon these 
opinions. We begin with and build upon a 
person, — the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of 
God, the Saviour from sin; and "other foun- 
dations can no man lay." 

That Jesus Christ, the Son of the living 



198 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

God, came into the world to save sinners, is 
the creed of the Gospel. 

Belief on him is the condition of salvation. 
"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou 
shalt be saved." 

Manifested faith in him, as the Saviour from 
sin, is the reason for fellowship and co-opera- 
tion. 

This faith in a person, the Lord Jesus 
Christ, induced as it is by the truth and Spirit 
of God, carries with it a radical change in the 
believer; an entire conformity of will, of affec- 
tion, of life to the Lord Jesus. 

This is seen from the very import of the 
original word {^Pisteuo^^ translated "believe." 
This word implies not mere intellectual assent 
to a fact, even the fact that Jesus is the Son of 
God, but the word, when used to designate 
faith in, or belief on a person, implies more; 
it implies committal. This is so clearly true 
that the word is sometimes translated commit, 
— "Jesus, knowing the hearts of all men, com- 
mitted not himself to them." John 2: 24. 

The soul that thus believes on, commits 
itself to the Lord Jesus, opens the door of the 
heart to Christ, and in so doing becomes "a 
new creature." Pertinent are the words of 



JOHN G. FEE. 199 

the apostle, "He that beHeveth that Jesus is 
the Christ" (commits himself to Jesus as the 
Christ) "is born of God." 

Such a believer is more than a mere moral- 
ist; more than a mere humanitarian; more 
than a mere professor; he is "a new creature." 

Opinions about a doctrine, a rite or a polit}^ 
however correct, carry with them no such 
radical change of heart and character; no 
sense of forgiveness, peace and joy in the Holy 
Ghost. 

Again, this faith in Christ is simple ; a child 
can comprehend it; a child knows what faith 
in a person is. It can believe on and trust in 
a parent or a friend. Also a child exercising 
this faith can have a conscious experience and 
can tell that experience, — can tell that it trusts 
in Jesus as its Saviour. But this child, whilst 
it can confess, trust in Jesus, and be fitted tor 
baptism and a place in the visible Church of 
Christ, cannot say it understands the five 
points of Calvinism, nor the twenty-five arti- 
cles of Methodist Discipline, nor the thirty- 
nine articles of the Episcopal Church. 

Again, this faith in Christ is all comprehen- 
sive, secures all moral excellence. Faith in 
Christ, belief on him, is committal to him who 



200 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

is holy, harmless and undefiled, the one "in 
whom dwells all the fullness of the God-head 
bodily." This faith then secures all moral ex- 
cellence. Not so with mere opinions; they 
have no transforming power. 

The devils believe facts concerning Christ; 
give intellectual assent, but no committal to 
Christ, and are devils still. Many of the slave- 
holders were orthodox, "sound in the faith," 
in the sense of opinion, but were still monsters 
of iniquity. 

Whilst it will be conceded that faith in a 
person, the Lord Jesus Christ, is simple and 
comprehensive, the question will be asked, 
"What about baptism and all good works?" 
We reply, the soul that believes on Christ 
(commits itself to him) must, from the very 
nature of the case, obey Christ, — in baptism, 
in all things commanded by him, must con- 
form readily to his entire life ; and thus in the 
word and the life of the living person, have a 
moral standard in the light of which to test 
the character of secret orders, caste spirit, in- 
temperate habits, all individual acts and social 
customs. Thus the creed we avow is divine, 
simple, and all comprehensive. 

It will be said the denominations have this 



JOHN G. FEE. 201 

creed and this faith in Christ in common with 
you. True; but they add to the divine plan 
— add something else, and build distinctively 
on this something else. They "lay other foun- 
dations" as the basis of fellowship and co-op- 
eration, and whilst they recognize true believ- 
ers as Christians, they co-operate ecclesiasti- 
cally only with those of certain opinions, and 
thus build parties, sects. Every denomination 
is an illustration of the fact stated. We begin 
with the Lutheran. A bit of history will viv- 
ify the illustration. 

For the first thirteen years of the Refor- 
mation Protestants were undivided. They had 
union on Christ. D'Aubigne says there exis- 
ted at that time in the evangehcal body no 
sects, hatred or schisms; Christian unity was a 
reality. The renewed disciples of Christ 
presented themselves to the Pope, to the em- 
peror, to the world and to the scaffold as 
forming one body. Carlstadt, speaking of 
Protestants, said, "We are but one body, one 
house, one people; we live and die by one and 
the same Saviour." 

There w^as union on Christ but difference in 
opinion in what Zwingle termed "secondary 
matters." Luther and Zwingle differed in 



202 A UTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

opinion about the eucharist, the Lord's Sup- 
per. At the conference at Marburg, Luther 
said, "I beheve that Christ's body is in 
heaven, and that Christ's body is in the bread, 
as the sword is in the scabbard." * * "The 
sacrament of the altar is the sacrament of the 
very body and the very blood of Jesus 
Christ." This opinion of actual presence he 
reaffirmed at Augsburg, Smalcald, and at 
Wittemburg. At the latter he added, as a 
modification, the phrase "spiritual manduca- 
tion." To this modified opinion he prefixed 
other opinions about depravity, original sin, 
inability and imputation. With these opinions, 
which he afterward again modified, he formed 
a creed for a party, which party soon took a 
name by which to designate the party from 
the rest of the body. Thus began sects and 
denominations early in the Reformation. 

Lutheranism has undergone many modifi- 
cations in different countries and at different 
times. These frequent modifications of the 
creed, like the continued modifications of the 
creeds of all other denominations, show that 
these creeds are but the fluctuating opinions 
of men. The divine creed changes not. 

Another illustration of the fact that the de- 



JOHN G. FEE. 208 

nominations begin with and build upon opin- 
ions may be drawn from the Presbyterian de- 
nomination. The brethren in this denomina- 
tion are of the opinion that the government of 
the Church should be by elders; that the au- 
thority of their ministers to preach the Gospel, 
administer the ordinances and feed the flock, 
is through the Holy Ghost by the imposition 
of the hands of the Presbytery. 

These Presbyterian brethren are also of 
the opinion that the five points of Calvinism 
are the correct interpretation of certain por- 
tions of the Word of God. With this polity 
and with these opinions of doctrine they form 
a creed and build a party upon it. 

The denomination known as Congregation- 
ahsts present another illustration. Congrega- 
tionalists are of the opinion that the govern- 
ment of the local church should be by the 
congregation; that local churches should be 
in ecclesiastical fellowship, united in associa- 
tions or councils. (See report of Committee 
of the National Council in 1889.) 

For a creed, Congregationalists first 
adopted the Savoy platform; then in this 
country, after a time, adopted the Cambridge 
platform — both platforms are intensely Cal- 



204 AUTQBIOGBAPHY OF 

vinistic. In the National Council of 1865 the 
Congregationalists there declared that their 
faith, as a denomination, "is Calvinistic." The 
creed drafted by the commission appointed by 
the National Council in 1884 is a modified 
creed of twelve articles, — articles which many 
Christians cannot accept. A clause in the 
eleventh article affirms that "baptism is to be 
administered to believers and their children," 
a clause which Joseph Cook said would ex- 
clude Francis Wayland, Dr. Hackett and 
thousands of other Christians. 

The creed received a national sanction at 
the recent meeting at Worcester, Mass., 
where, as a reason for receiving delegates 
from the State of Georgia, it was said "they 
accept our polity and adhere to the creed set 
forth by our Commission in 1884." Thus 
Congregationalism has its polity, its associa- 
tion of churches and its amended creed, — a 
creed built upon the shifting opinions of men 
and the distinctive features of a party. 

The formation of the Methodist denomina- 
tion affords another illustration. For some 
fifteen years before our Revolutionary war, 
vigorous missionary efforts were carried on in 
several of the Southern States of this Union 



JOHN G. FEE. 205 

under the labors of Wesley, Whitlield and 
others. The converts worshipped for a time, 
not as a denomination, but in local churches 
or societies; some of them simply with Wes- 
ley's rules. Efforts were made to form a 
denomination. These were as often resisted. 
At length, in 1784, under the labors of Coke 
and Asbur};, a convention was called, a propo- 
sition for a distinct ecclesiastical association 
was submitted and accepted. Twenty-four 
articles of faith, with an episcopal form of 
government, and the name of Methodist Epis- 
copal as that by which to designate the body, 
was also accepted. The poHty, the name, and 
a fourth part of the articles of faith were then 
and now are such that thousands of Chris- 
tians cannot accept them; they are divisive. 
The denomination, like other denominations, 
is built upon opinions, and is a schism in the 
body of Christ. 

The Baptist denomination presents another 
illustration. The Baptist brethren are of the 
opinion that the original Greek word, Baptizo, 
when used to designate action, means im- 
merse; and should have been translated so in 
our version; and that the right of baptism 
should be administered only to believers. 



206 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

This, after much care and study, is my own 
opinion, and I act accordingly, — strive to live 
up to my convictions. Here I must stop, for 
I recosrnize the fact that in our version we 
have not a translation of the original word, but 
only the original Greek word, with an EngHsh 
termination affixed. I also recognize the fact 
that ninety and nine out of every hundred 
true behevers are unable to translate; and that 
they must of necessity interpret. As a Prot- 
estant, as a brother, I must grant to manifest 
believers the right of private interpretation ; 
especially when it is conceded that the mis- 
take in interpretation may be consistent with 
Christian life and character. 

I believe our Pedo-baptist brethren have 
made a mistake in their act of confession and 
consecration, but the}^ have nevertheless made 
confession and consecration, though they have 
erred in the form of the act. The mistake in 
the manner of action does not destroy Chris- 
tian character, — evidence of true faith in 
Christ as the Saviour from sin. Again, my 
belief is that our Pedo-baptist brethren, in 
their act of consecration, have omitted an im- 
portant feature of a true baptism; the S3^m- 
bolization of "death to sin and resurrection to 



JOHN G. FEE. 207 

newness of life"; nevertheless, by their trust 
in Christ they have the fact, death to sin and 
resurrection to a new Hfe. They have failed, 
as I believe, to symbolize the fact. 

It is my opinion that my Pedo-baptist 
brethren have omitted the impressive emblem 
of the death, burial and resurrection of our 
Lord; but I know that from other sources in 
God's Word they do teach these precious 
facts. 

It will be said, you insist upon correct opin- 
ions about Christ; why not about the word 
baptize? I reply, I do beheve and teach, as 
revealed in God's Word, that Christ is the 
"eternal life," and not a secondary or after 
existence; that he is the "Word who was 
with God and was God" — "God manifest in 
the flesh"; but the thing I insist upon is not 
opinion about Christ, but the actual fact of 
trust in committal to him as the personal Sav- 
iour from sin. This is vital to life and char- 
acter; but correct opinions about the import 
of the word baptize, or the design of baptism, 
are not vital in the case of the true believer; 
the mistake does not destroy Christian char- 
acter. 

With Alex. Campbell we concur when he 

H 



208 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 



says, "There are Christians among the sects." 
We think it is best to treat these Chris- 
tians as such; believing that if anxious in- 
quirers shall be freed from the bias of sects 
and denominational teachings, they will gen- 
erally apprehend the truth of God's Word in 
reference to the action and design of bap- 
tism. Our Baptist brethren, however, are of 
the opinion that church fellowship should be 
extended only to immersed believers; and 
upon this opinion form a party, and take a 
name by which to distinguish the party from 
the rest of the body. 

What we have said of the denominations 
previously referred to, is true of all other de- 
nominations, even of those who have no writ- 
ten creed, or those who call themselves by 
the Catholic name "Christians." A creed 
may be as real when oral, as when written. 
We may take an illustration — opposition to the 
doctrine of the Trinity, or the doctrine of the 
"distinct personality of the Son from the 
Father," or baptism for the remission of sins, 
or immersion of a believer as a condition of 
fellowship and co-operation, and make accept- 
ance of any one of these opinions the condi- 
tion of fellowship and co-operation, and then 



JOHN G, FEE, 209 

take some name by which to designate the 
association, and you will have the essential 
elements of a denomination, though there be 
no written creed. 

The Catholic name "Christian" does not 
alter the nature of the association. The name 
Christian may be prostituted from its high 
purpose of designating Christian character, — 
a follower or followers of Christ, to that of 
designating a party, — a part of the body of 
Christ, separated on an opinion not necessary 
to oneness in Christ, This may be with or 
without an association of churches. 

The error, then, of denominationalism is in 
taking an opinion about some doctrine, rite or 
polity, and making a party on that opinion, 
rite or polity, and taking a name, however 
Catholic, by which to designate that party 
from the rest of the body of Christ. 

The question will be asked, "Is not the 
local church you advocate a section, a part of 
the body, and that, too, with a name by which 
to designate it?" 

We reply, yes; but not in the reprehensible 
sense of the word; the sense condemned by the 
Word of God. It is right that the followers 
of Christ be separated from the worlds — be in 



210 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

this respect a section^ and that the church thus 
separated wear the name of Christ, its head. 

Whilst, then, the true followers of Christ 
are, by their new birth, their baptism, their 
worship, their lives, separated from the world, 
they are not to be separated one from another; 
they are to be one body, wearing the one 
name, — the name of Christ, their head. But 
the division of the body of believers into sects, 
parties, and this on mere opinions about doc- 
trines, rites or polities, with names by which 
to designate these separate parties, is not 
right. Such separation is the sin of schism^ 
condemned by the Word of God, and de- 
plored by good men and women. W^ then 
build on Christ, a person, and seek to convert 
men to him in all the fullness of his character, 
baptize in his name, and gather together for 
worship and thus constitute the one church of 
the locality; not as a party, but as 2i part of 
the whole body of Christ, wearing his name, 
and his name only. 

For evangelization we may have Mission 
Boards appointed by conventions composed 
of individuals, and thus be as undenomination- 
al as the American Bible Society itself. 

This board, or executive committee, may 



JOHN G. FEE. 211 

receive funds, commission evangelists and 
teachers, who shall devote themselves to the 
one great work of converting souls to Christ 
in all the fullness of his character. 

Then will the church "come up out of the 
wilderness, leaning upon the arm of her be- 
loved, fair as the morn, clear as the sun, and 
terrible as an armv with banners," 

THE END. 



